


Practice Makes Perfect

by artikgato



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Anal Sex, Bananas, Barebacking, Bathroom Sex, Deepthroating, Demisexual Character, Demisexuality, Dirty Talk, Exhibitionism, Facials, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Frottage, Hickeys, Inappropriate use of bananas, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Oral Sex, Outdoor Sex, Secret Relationship, Sex Toys, Workplace Sex, look at these two dorks, suddenly drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:11:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6328630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artikgato/pseuds/artikgato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naturally, Yosuke found himself turning to the internet for advice. After wading through pages and pages of unwanted advice, pictures he could never unsee, and thoroughly unhelpful people telling him that his lifestyle was wrong and sinful and he was going to hell, he emerged from the other side with one piece of helpful advice: practice. It made perfect sense, in hindsight, and was such glaringly obvious that he was almost mad he hadn't thought of it himself. He had to get himself used to the idea of doing Gay Stuff before he could do it with Souji and not make a total fool of himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has been sitting on my hard drive for literal months with the title "40 bananas". There will definitely be a second chapter, with the IT and some banana shenanigans. There might even be a third chapter (gasp!).

Souji Seta gave fantastic blowjobs.

Yosuke wasn't entirely sure how he knew just where to lick, how hard to suck, what pitch to hum at, the perfect moment to reach up and gently massage his balls but...damn, Souji was really good. It was almost comically unfair how inadequate Yosuke felt in comparison. Souji was just _better at sex_ than he was, and he just wanted to make Souji feel as good as he did. When he finally got fed up enough to ask how Souji was so good, Souji had just laughed and told him that it was mostly intuition. Totally unfair. When Yosuke tried going down on him and let his "intuition" take over, it had only been thoroughly unsatisfying for _both_ of them. Despite the fact that his dick was very much on board with having all kinds of sex with Souji, and he really did love him to an embarrassing degree that he didn't want to admit to, for some reason he still had knee-jerk reactions to things like this. Getting sucked off by Souji? Totally fine. Pushing him down onto the futon and fucking him senseless? Great! But when it came to trying to go down on him or, gulp, getting fucked by him, for some reason his brain just kept shrieking "WHAT ARE YOU DOING" at the top of it's proverbial lungs.

It was frustrating.

So, naturally, Yosuke found himself turning to the internet for advice. After wading through pages and pages of unwanted advice, pictures he could never unsee, and thoroughly unhelpful people telling him that his lifestyle was wrong and sinful and he was going to hell, he emerged from the other side with one piece of helpful advice: practice. It made perfect sense, in hindsight, and was such glaringly obvious that he was almost mad he hadn't thought of it himself. He had to get himself used to the idea of doing Gay Stuff before he could do it with Souji and not make a total fool of himself. And so, after a thoroughly embarrassing trip to the produce section of Junes and an equally embarrassing online purchase that he'd had to psyche himself up for fifteen solid minutes just to hit the 'ok' button on, he was ready to go.

One month, forty bananas, one obnoxiously pink dildo and more lube than he would ever really be comfortable with later, he pushed Souji down onto the futon with a triumphant grin. Souji just looked amused at him as he hurriedly pushed and pulled off their clothes, plastering on a smile that said 'I'm glad you're trying' when Yosuke kissed his way down to his half-hard member. Yosuke barely managed not to snicker, sending him a smirk that actually made him blush. He really had no idea what he was in store for. Yosuke just hoped that all of the practice wasn't for nothing. While he stroked Souji's erection into full hardness, he took a few deep breaths, reminded himself to relax, and reminded himself of all of his hard work.

He started off slow and simple, kissing the head, teasing it with his tongue, eventually taking it into his mouth and sucking. He could do _this_ of course, he'd gotten pretty good at this even before all of the bananas. He also knew, from previous experience, that Souji would get bored with this eventually and want more, and that had been where the problems had started. So he waited for the tell tale signs of Souji's impatience that even he had managed to pick up, waited for the barely audible sigh, the way he tried and failed to keep his hips from jumping. He took a deep breath, relaxed his throat, and slid all the way down until his face met Souji's hips.

"Y-Yosuke, wh-when did you learn...?" Souji gasped, ending his question with a groan that was amazed and reverent and wanton all at once, and it was the single hottest thing Yosuke had ever heard come out of his partner's mouth.

This was better than bananas. This was _so much_ better than bananas. He glanced up, taking in the flushed, desperate look on Souji's face, and caught his eyes and started to suck, swallowing and moaning around the hot, throbbing length in his throat. He felt Souji's hands thread into in his hair, gripping a little tighter than Yosuke would have wanted, but, wow, the little bit of pain wasn't bad at all, it made his own dick throb, made him wonder if he was actually a masochist. He carefully, slowly started to move bit by bit, tongue massaging the underside of Souji's dick as he went, and Souji started making desperate noises that he'd never heard him make before. Even though he'd practiced with the bananas - _a lot_ \- he wasn't quite prepared for how it felt, the taste, the slide, the way Souji's dick was throbbing...or for the sounds Souji was making. When he finally heard Souji gasp out his name he very nearly came right there, without even having touched his own dick.

He was also surprised to find that he really, _really_ wanted Souji to fuck him right now. More than he wanted Souji to come from this blowjob, which was actually a lot. With that in mind he braced himself on Souji's hips and pulled back, carefully sliding Souji's dick out of his throat and mouth and taking a few big, gasping breaths of air. Souji whined and tried to pull him back down, and nearly succeeded, but Yosuke resisted, looking up to meet Souji's eyes with a frown and a noise of disapproval. Souji was flushed and panting and had a hazy look in his eyes that made Yosuke a little proud. Souji blinked and, after a few seconds of just breathing heavily, he pulled his hands out of Yosuke's hair with a pained, guilty look on his face.

"S-sorry," he panted. "I just...it felt so good, I got caught up in it..." Yosuke knew it felt good - hell, how many times had Souji done the same to him? Of course it felt good, but for some reason the affirmation of it, the idea that _he_ had given Souji so much pleasure that he'd actually lost his composure...god, that was hot. He reached under the nearby pillow and retrieved the lube that he knew was there. Souji made a very interesting sound in response, a half-moan half-gasp that went _straight_ to Yosuke's dick.

"I want you so bad right now, Partner," Yosuke said, voice quiet and hoarse. "I need you inside me, _please_." Souji's mouth was on his in an instant, hard and insistent and evidently, Souji didn't care one bit about where Yosuke's mouth had just been, because he was pushing his tongue inside and moaning desperately into his mouth. Souji pushed him back onto the futon and Yosuke just let him, spreading his legs to let him settle between them. Souji's spit-slicked erection rubbed against his and they both groaned at the friction. Souji thrust against him a couple of times, grinding them together, and for a moment Yosuke almost wanted to let him continue, to just finish like that, but he knew what he wanted. He grabbed Souji by the hips and forced him to hold still, shuddering at the almost frantic look Souji gave him when he did.

"Fuck me, Souji," he pleaded, and couldn't help but grin at the way Souji shivered when he used his actual name.

"God, Yosuke," he groaned in response. "Where did you...when...how did you...?"

"I've been practicing," Yosuke replied, reaching up to put a finger to Souji's lips, to stop the questions. "I want this. I _need_ this."

The first time they had tried things this way, with Souji on top, Yosuke had been so nervous and tense that it had ended up hurting him. They'd tried a few more times after that, and while slightly better, Yosuke had still been too nervous the entire time to really enjoy himself. Worried that, somehow, he wasn't going to be good enough, unable to quell the warning bells in his head that shrieked "THIS IS GAY" over and over at him. And, truthfully, it had taken him several tries with the dildo to really understand what was so great about this, why Souji would moan and clutch the pillow when Yosuke fucked him. Souji could tell that something had changed about Yosuke, and Yosuke could sense that he knew.

Souji's fingers were the same as always as the other man opened him up - warm and slick and careful. Nothing had changed, really, but things felt different now - Yosuke _got it_ now. From the almost reverent way Souji was looking down at him and the slight tremor of impatience in his hands, and the way he was going a little faster than he had ever dared to in the past, Yosuke could tell he wanted this just as badly as Yosuke himself did. He almost wanted to tell him to skip this step and go straight to the main event, but he wanted this to be good, and he knew Souji did too. A second finger was added quickly, a third not long after, and it didn't make Yosuke feel weird and kind of grossed out, like before. No, it only heightened the anticipation now. Fuck, he wanted this. He wanted this _so bad_. Eventually he reached down and stilled Souji's hand with a hand on his elbow, meeting his eyes with a firm look.

"Fuck me," he repeated, and Souji all but crushed him down into the pillow with a hard, sloppy kiss full of need.

Feeling the throbbing, warm, wet tip of Souji's dick press against his hole and start to slide inside was heavenly. Yosuke was amazed at how good it felt, amazed at how different it was from his fingers, from the dildo, even from the times they had tried this before. The pressure was amazing, the stretching sensation wonderful, and when he felt the head rub against his prostate he couldn't help jerking his hips down, needing to feel more of him inside. He wasn't going to last long like this, but then again, neither would Souji. Souji wasted no time, starting to move inside him nearly as soon as he had slid in all the way. Yosuke grabbed desperately at the sheets underneath his hands and pressed his head hard back against the futon, lifting his hips to meet Souji's thrusts. He didn't care that it made him feel like a slut, he had never felt better in his life, getting fucked desperately into the futon by his amazing, hot, perfect boyfriend.

"Yosuke...you...t-this is...this is so..." Souji gasped, and Yosuke could only pant and gasp in response. It wasn't long before he felt Souji let go of his hip with one hand and wrap it around his cock, stroking it hard and rough in time with his thrusts.

"I'm...I'm close, Yosuke, should I...c-can I...?" Souji managed to ask, and a little thrill went through Yosuke at the knowledge that not only was Souji close to coming, he actually _wanted_ to come inside him. And Yosuke wanted to _let him_. Every other time before they had used a condom, because the thought of having cum in his ass had disgusted Yosuke to no extent, but now, so close to orgasm, he had never found the idea _hotter_.

"Please," he gasped, and almost as soon as the word has left his mouth he felt Souji grab him with both hands and pull him flush against his hips, felt his cock throbbing and pulsing. He shuddered and came when he felt wet heat deep inside him, arching hard against the bed, coming harder than he ever had in his life. Intense didn't even _begin_ to describe it. He didn't have time to do much other than gasp in a few desperate breaths before Souji's hands were in his hair and he was kissing him hard, tongue twisting against his as they both came down from their highs.

"Love you," Souji murmured when he finally pulled away from their kiss, and Yosuke felt the words shoot through him like a dizzying wave of heat. He couldn't help blushing and smiling, especially at the utterly fond look Souji was giving him. He laughed.

"Tell me that again in the morning," he chided, twining their legs together and reaching across the futon to tug a blanket over the two of them as Souji pressed sleepy kisses to the side of his neck.

  
He woke up to Souji nudging his shoulder.

"What is it, Partner?" he asked, trying not to open his eyes.

"Nanako will be back in half an hour," Souji informed him. He sighed and regretfully opened his eyes, sitting up and stretching to work out the kinks in his back and shoulder. Souji was, of course, already fully awake and fully dressed, hair damp from a shower. Yosuke collected his clothes, thoroughly impressed by just how far some of them had gotten tossed in their general haste to get naked last night, and stumbled his way into the bathroom for a shower. When he finally made his way downstairs, Souji was starting to hang the futon blanket on the line outside to dry, having apparently already washed it. Yosuke approached him with a wave and a sheepish grin, and helped him tug the blanket over the clothesline.

"S-sorry, Partner," he said, with a blush. "I got a little carried away last night, didn't I?" Souji looked over at him and shook his head with a laugh.

"Believe me, Yosuke, I don't mind," he replied, stepping close to him and taking Yosuke's hands between his own. "If a little emergency laundry is the price I have to pay for _that_ kind of service..."

Yosuke's little blush turned into a full-blown, face-consuming redness.

"G-glad you liked it," he managed to return, suddenly staring at the ground in his bashfulness. He looked up again when Souji tugged him a little bit closer, leaning in to meet him for a kiss that was far, far too chaste for his tastes, especially considering all the things they had been doing with their mouths last night.

"You told me to tell you again in the morning, so," Souji started, and Yosuke's brow furrowed a little in confusion before he remembered, blush returning in full force as Souji continued, "I love you, Yosuke."

"I...I l-love you too," Yosuke stammered. Souji smiled in return, and combined with the way the light was hitting him, the nice, gentle breeze, the perfect, cloudless sky...it was so cliché but just so amazingly, perfectly romantic, and all Yosuke could do was helplessly smile back and let Souji lead him back into the house, dazed and lightheaded. He didn't really snap out of the trance until Souji set some rice and miso soup down in front of him and handed him chopsticks.

"So," Souji started, voice far too casual to actually be casual, "You've been... practicing."

"Y-yeah," Yosuke admitted, blush returning to settle across his cheeks. He put down his soup, just to make sure he didn't suddenly spill it. He looked past Souji, just to make sure that Dojima's shoes were gone, to make sure they were actually alone in the house, before he continued. "M-mostly with bananas."

"Bananas," Souji returned, his voice and face deadpan. When Yosuke nodded, his face split into a grin and he chuckled, earning him a frown from Yosuke.

"W-what else was I supposed to practice with?!" Yosuke demanded. Souji laughed again, and his frown deepened. "I just wanted to make you feel as good as you make me feel! What's so funny about that?"

"Nothing, nothing," Souji assured him, though he still sounded amused. Yosuke made a grumpy noise and folded his arms, turning away from Souji. Apparently unable to resist the urge to tease him, Souji scooted closer, leaning over to whisper directly into his ear. "I'll eat your banana any day, Yosuke."

"Partner!" Yosuke wailed, planting a hand on his face and shoving him back, but he couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it, laughing along with Souji. Not long after that, Nanako arrived from her overnight stay with one of her classmates, and she joined them for breakfast, and all discussion of bananas was forgotten. Forever, Yosuke hoped.

Of course, Yosuke should have known better. 


	2. Banana Split

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We know it's been a long day, so we wanted to order you some dessert, to cheer you up!" Teddy piped up with a grin. "Sensei suggested we order you a banana split!"

"What is this?" Yosuke found himself asking, about a week later. He had just sat down with the rest of the group, finally able to relax after a long and trying shift at Junes, only to find a bowl placed in front of him. A bowl containing several scoops of ice cream, whipped cream, a cherry and, most tellingly, a banana.

"We know it's been a long day, so we wanted to order you some dessert, to cheer you up!" Teddy piped up with a grin. "Sensei suggested we order you a banana split!"

"Did he?" Yosuke asked, sending a glare over at his boyfriend. His boyfriend who had actually been the one to suggest that they not tell the rest of the group yet that they were dating, even though they both knew fully well that it was going to be an ordeal.

"You like bananas, right?" Souji asked, calmly, but Yosuke could tell that he was smirking, even if he wasn't showing it. Yosuke valiantly managed not to blush at the comment, but did continue to glare over at Souji, to everyone's confusion.

"Did...did I miss something?" Chie finally asked, and Yosuke jumped a little. He had actually forgotten the rest of the team was there for a second in his annoyance at Souji.

"N-no! Nothing!" Yosuke replied, reaching for the spoon that was nestled into one of the scoops of ice cream with a nervous laugh.

"Are you maybe tired of bananas, Yosuke? You did buy an awful lot over the past month..." Teddie added, thoughtfully, and Yosuke dropped the spoon in his surprise.

"Shut it, bear!" he cried. Teddie pouted at him, Souji snickered, and everyone else looked absolutely bewildered.

"Thanks for the dessert, partner!" he practically yelped, grabbing the spoon and digging in with vigor, and thankfully everybody just shrugged and moved on. As soon as nobody was looking at him, he shot a withering glare over at Souji, who returned it with a playful smirk. Then, he reached over and plucked the cherry off of the top of the confection and popped it into his mouth before Yosuke could protest, an incredibly smug look on his face. Yosuke was sure that there was a saying in English about cherries that had something to do with sex or virginity, but he decided very pointedly _not_ to think about it. He ate slowly, taking care to avoid the banana entirely and just ate the ice cream and whipped cream instead.

"I suppose you really don't like bananas after all, Yosuke-kun?" Yukiko suddenly asked him. He very nearly choked on a spoonful of chocolate ice cream.

"N-no I, just...prefer to eat the banana last?" he finally replied. She seemed pacified.

"Okay then. I'm just trying to make sure of everyone's likes and dislikes, for the next time we cook," she replied, smiling over at Chie. Yosuke had a very vivid image of her adding a banana to curry and his distress must have been _palpable_ , because Kanji spoke up.

"Uh...please don't tell me you were thinkin' of adding _bananas_ to curry, Yukiko-sempai," he hedged. The conversation quickly turned to her and Chie defending their various culinary disasters. Yosuke kept eating the ice cream, furiously trying to think of a way to get rid of the banana without having to eat it. Why hadn't he just _said_ he doesn't like bananas? That would have been way easier! No, the real problem here wasn't that he didn't like bananas. The real problem was way more embarrassing than that, so embarrassing he didn't even want Souji to find out, though it was bad enough that Souji knew he had...practiced with bananas. No, the real problem was that he had, somehow, learned to associate the taste and texture of bananas with...well, with sex. This was certainly a problem he hadn't thought of. Even just having the banana in front of him was making him a little aroused, to his own horror.

Eventually, the ice cream was all gone, and he decided to just eat the banana as quickly as possible and - yep, the flavor was _definitely_ enough to make him hard. The fact that Souji was watching him eat with almost entirely undivided attention certainly didn't help, either.

"Bathroom!" he practically yelped, jumping from his seat and darting away, making a beeline for the employee bathrooms. He really, _really_ would have preferred not to be doing this at his workplace, but if he was quick there wouldn't be a problem. Except. _Except_.

Souji followed him. Of _course_ Souji followed him.

"Can I come in?" he asked, with a knock on the stall door. Yosuke jumped.

"What? No!" he exclaimed. Souji sighed.

"Sorry, I upset you didn't I?" he asked. Yosuke frowned.

"No man, it's cool," he replied.

"Are...you sure?" Souji asked, hesitantly. "Because you would have called me 'partner' if everything was _actually_ fine."

"Dude, I'm just trying to take a leak," he replied, with a laugh that didn't sound convincing in the slightest. He could practically _hear_ Souji frowning at him.

"...can I make it up to you?" Souji asked. And then, a second later he added in a much quieter voice, "With my hands?" As tempting as the thought of Souji's amazing hands on his dick were right now, there was no _way_ he was letting that happen in the employee bathroom of Junes.

"Not here," he hissed.

"Nobody's around," Souji countered, voice sultry. "I'll make it quick."

"Damn it, Souji, I'm just trying to pee, okay?" Yosuke whined. Souji snorted.

"Yeah right. I saw how hard you were," he replied. All Yosuke managed to do in response was make a horrified noise, so Souji pressed on. "It wasn't because of the banana split, was it?"

"No!" Yosuke denied, probably a little too vehemently. "Now go away so I can pee, okay?" Souji laughed.

"No way," he refused.

"Soujiiii," Yosuke whined, and he chuckled.

"Pee if you're going to pee," he replied.

"Y-you know I have a problem with that, I-" Yosuke started to protest.

"Watching you eat that banana got me all hot and bothered. Want to help me out, _Partner_?" Souji purred, changing tactics on him. And, damn him, it was _working_. Yosuke got the sense that if he didn't _already_ have a borderline painful hard-on he certainly would have gotten one after hearing _that_.

"...dammit," he swore, turning around and unlocking the stall door with a sigh. Souji made a noise of triumph and squeezed in beside him with a ridiculously smug grin.

"I'll make it quick," Souji promised, again, and Yosuke shuddered in response.

"You have to stop if someone walks in," he protested. Souji just nodded, leaning in to kiss him a little more tenderly than expected. He jolted when he felt Souji's hand suddenly cupping his hardness, Souji chuckling into the kiss before pulling back.

"You are _really_ hard," he observed. Yosuke just whimpered, and Souji started to rub him through his pants. "Is it _really_ not because of the banana split?"

"I, um," Yosuke floundered, slowly starting to turn red with embarrassment. Part of him wanted to just _admit_ it, get it all out in the open, but that would be mortifying. He just _couldn't_. "It-it just reminded me of the other night, that's all."

"And just remembering that was enough to get you _this_ hard?" Souji asked, and he sounded sincerely curious. Yosuke gulped.

"It was really hot!" he replied, defensively. Souji had somehow gotten his fly open and had slid his hand inside to rub him through his underwear instead, and it was getting really hard to think.

"It was," Souji admitted. Yosuke felt a fluttery feeling of pride and arousal and happiness at the words, face turning even redder. He had to bite his lip to hold back an indecent moan when Souji's hand finally slid into his underwear, pushing the cloth down and pulling his cock out simultaneously. He felt dirty and exposed and _unbelievably_ obscene, pushed up against the wall of a stall in the employee bathroom of his own workplace, getting felt up like this when someone could walk in at any time and he could _so_ easily get fired for this. Thoughts like those should have been a total buzzkill but to Yosuke's dismay they were actually enhancing the experience instead of detracting from it. The danger was making his balls tighten in anticipation, and he could feel his hips jolt a little with each sound that they didn't manage to hold back. This was _awful_  and _so hot_ and... and Yosuke didn't know what to _think_ anymore. Then Souji grabbed him by the hips and pulled the two of them flush together, and Yosuke discovered that Souji had somehow managed to undo his own pants as well, their dicks both hard and pressed together in the tight space between their bodies. This was _way t_ _oo much_.

"Partner," he whimpered, and Souji just kissed him in response. One hand remained on his hip and the other curled around their dicks, pressing them together as he started thrusting, grinding hard against him. Yosuke's arms ended up around Souji's shoulders, clenched in the fabric of his uniform jacket as he moaned into the kiss. Souji's thrusts were making the stall door rattle, and Yosuke knew that there was no way Souji was going to be able to stop if someone walked in, and that was only making things hotter for him...

Thankfully, no-one actually walked in, and it wasn't long before Yosuke was moaning into Souji's mouth as he came. Souji had, somehow, been prepared for it, catching both his and Yosuke's release in a wad of toilet paper. Yosuke hadn't even spared a single thought to what would happen if they got their uniforms dirty.

"G-good thinking, partner," he panted as Souji flushed the incriminating evidence of their little tryst down the toilet.

"Can't have anyone getting suspicious, now can we?" he replied, with a grin. He somehow looked completely composed, not a damned _hair_ out of place, and aside from the very attractive flush on his cheeks he looked completely unruffled. Yosuke, meanwhile, was sure he looked like he had been through some kind of natural disaster. It really wasn't fair.

"I'll tell the others you had a stomachache, but that you should be fine soon," Souji added, making to reach for the lock on the stall door.

"Um, Souji," Yosuke started, and Souji's hand stopped on the lock as he looked over at him. "Sh...shouldn't we just _tell_ everyone already? Get this out in the open?" he asked. Souji blinked.

"I thought that you would have _wanted_ to keep it secret," he replied, looking honestly surprised. "Considering how you reacted to Kanji's Shadow, and when I confessed..."

Yosuke bit his lip, flushing in embarrassment. It hadn't been that long ago, not really, but so much had changed, so quickly, that he was already feeling ashamed of how he had used to think and feel about two guys being...together. He couldn't _believe_ how wrong his way of thinking had been. _Still_ was, probably, because as much as he loved Souji, he found the idea of doing things like this with literally _any_ other guy to be appalling and gross, and he didn't want to think about what other gay guys did either. But, for some reason, with Souji it was totally fine to do this, to want this. He didn't understand it at all and he was still very confused about the whole thing, but he did know one thing.

"I know. I just...I just want to be able to...t-to like, hold your hand and kiss you and stuff without it being a big deal," Yosuke replied, blushing so hard he was starting to feel lightheaded.

"Yosuke," Souji replied, and he said it so fondly that Yosuke _had_ to look up, and when he did Souji pressed a warm, affectionate kiss to his lips.

"If you really want to," Souji added, when he pulled away from Yosuke. "We can tell them. But..."

"But?" Yosuke prompted. This time, Souji blushed, and Yosuke almost couldn't believe it, because it was so rare to see him get embarrassed by _anything_.

"I...kind of like having a secret romance," he admitted, with a nervous laugh. "I mean, the whole thing seems so... forbidden. We're both guys, and we're best friends, and I _never_ thought you would actually accept my confession, so...keeping it secret makes it so much more dangerous, you know?"

"...and you get off on that," Yosuke concluded. Souji blushed harder.

"Y-yeah," he stammered. Yosuke grinned. He had been totally unsuccessful at uncovering any of Souji's kinks thus far, so getting him to admit to one so easily felt like a huge victory on his part.

"Alright, we can keep it a secret then," he replied, with a huge smirk. "Why don't we make a bet on who will figure it out first, then? It's gotta be Rise, right?"

"I'd be surprised if she didn't _already_ know. We have a telepathic connection when we're in the TV world after all," Souji pointed out. Yosuke made a thoughtful noise.

"Okay, different bet. Who do you think will figure it out last?"

"Kanji," Souji replied, without hesitation. Yosuke snorted.

"I dunno man, Kanji's a lot more shrewd than you give him credit for," he returned, playfully. "My money's on Chie."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am being entirely unserious with this fic. However, I still felt the need to do research and make sure nothing conflicts too seriously with canon because IDK I'm some kind of fanfic masochist? So there is a timeline for this fic:
> 
> June 13: Magician Rank 10  
> June 17/18: School camping trip  
> Late June/Early July: Souji confesses  
> Mid/late July: Yosuke starts buying a lot of bananas...  
> August 10ish: chapter 1  
> August 15ish: chapter 2
> 
> This isn't really that important but it sets up the next chapter, and also explains why Naoto isn't there during this chapter because let's be honest, if Naoto was there it would have taken her about 5 seconds to figure out that there were shenanigans afoot with Souji and Yosuke.
> 
> Anyway there will be at least one more chapter of banana hijinks. Look forward to it!


	3. The Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He would have never guessed, just a couple of months ago when that boy helped pull him out of that trashcan, that he was going to be special to Yosuke. That he was going to hold him and pat his back while Yosuke cried about Saki. That he was going to make Yosuke...*feel* like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Instead of banana shenanigans, I bring you some kind of weird prologue. I promise more bananas in the future!

They had been laying side-by-side in the grass on the riverbank. It was a warm day in late June, not too hot yet but hot enough that Yosuke kind of wanted to take off his shirt, just to cool down a little. There was a soft breeze stirring the grass, and there were a few people milling about, that one fisherman had his line in the water. It wasn't time for cicadas yet, thankfully, so the only sounds were the birds chirping, the river flowing, and the distant sounds of people chattering. He certainly missed the city life sometimes, but it was days like today that made Yosuke appreciate life in this small town. Though part of the reason he was having such a good time might have had something to do with the boy laying beside him, staring up at the slowly drifting clouds in the sky.

Yosuke hated having thoughts like these. Souji was special to him, of course - he'd known right from the start that the quiet boy with those soft but somehow still piercing eyes was going to be important. He could _sense_ it. He just...hadn't realized how important he was going to be. He would have never guessed, just a couple of months ago when that boy helped pull him out of that trashcan, that he was going to be special to Yosuke. That he was going to hold him and pat his back while Yosuke cried about Saki. That he was going to make Yosuke... _feel_ like this.

Yosuke wasn't gay. He _wasn't_. He still liked girls, still had stupid fantasies about meeting Risette or Kanamin and them instantly liking him and wanting to be his girlfriend and do...other things with him. He still found himself wishing that one of the cute girls from his class would stop seeing Junes and start seeing _him_. He still occasionally entertained the idea of maybe asking out Chie or Yukiko again...maybe now that they knew him a little better, they would say yes? But he'd seen their Shadows, after all, and he knew deep down that there was no way he could see either of them as more than friends now. They weren't that cute but aggressive tomboy or the elegant and untouchable beauty anymore, they were just...Chie and Yukiko.

But Souji. Souji wasn't _just_ Souji, oh no. He was Yosuke's _partner_ , his best friend. He _got_ Yosuke in a way nobody else did. He really was special.

At first he wished that Souji was a girl. That would have made things so much simpler, right? If Souji was a girl, Yosuke might have actually had a chance at getting a girlfriend before graduation, even if Souji was leaving after a year. At least then Yosuke would have had the experience, right? But Souji wasn't a girl, not at all.

And just around the time Yosuke had started thinking that maybe it was _okay_ if Souji wasn't a girl and Yosuke still felt like this...Kanji had shown up, with his creepy Shadow, and with his "girls are scary", and Yosuke didn't know what to think, because he was _right_ and Yosuke didn't want to be... _that_. He didn't want to be what Kanji's Shadow had been. He didn't want to coo at men, he didn't _like_ men. He didn't want to thumb his nose at girls, he _liked_ girls. he didn't want to be scared of girls (even though he kind of was). He didn't want to be _anything_ like Kanji's Shadow. He was afraid, and above all else Yosuke hated being afraid, hated feeling powerless and defenseless.

So he had lashed out.

Even as soon as it had left his mouth, he'd regretted asking Kanji if they would be 'safe' with him in the tent during the school camping trip. He _knew_ Kanji wasn't really like that - his Shadow was a part of him, sure, but it was the part that he hated, that he didn't want to acknowledge. Yosuke's own Shadow had been that way too - a part of himself that he knew was there but desperately didn't want to acknowledge. Yosuke _knew_ that - but he had still lashed out at Kanji, because Kanji had come to stand for all of the confusion and fear that Yosuke was trying desperately to ignore. And he was confused because of Souji. Because Souji was so kind, and strong and brave, and he made Yosuke feel so good about himself, so happy. So confused. He wanted this to stop but he didn't want to stop being around Souji.

"Yosuke," the object of his thoughts suddenly said, and Yosuke flinched, coming back from his chaotic whirlpool of thoughts to realize that Souji was propped up on his side, looking at him with concern, and he was fidgeting, one hand idly tearing up the grass beneath it blade-by-blade, the other one messing with the hem of his shirt. "You alright?"

"Yeah," he replied, forcing himself to laugh. He extracted both hands from their tasks and shuffled to face Souji, mirroring his pose. "Just thinking."

"Well that's a first," Souji teased, and Yosuke pouted at him.

"I know my test scores are low, but c'mon Partner..." he protested. Souji laughed, and no, Yosuke's heart didn't suddenly start pounding faster, and butterflies certainly didn't start fluttering around in his stomach, god damn it.

"You looked really serious," Souji replied. He didn't say it, but Yosuke could tell he was worried that Yosuke was dwelling on Saki again. The truth was that he'd been thinking about Saki less and less these days. Especially after that hug on the hilltop, and that fight they'd had on the riverbank. It was like, when Susanoo-o rose out of the depths of his soul, part of Yosuke just became...free. But another part, the part that he fought hard not to even acknowledge, became trapped. Trapped in the knowledge that he had a big, stupid crush on his best friend, and that was wrong and stupid and the worst thing possible for so many reasons, _too_ many reasons.

"A lot's happened," Yosuke replied, with a shrug. It was all he could really say. Souji made a disappointed noise, and then flopped back onto his back, hands folded together over his stomach. He looked troubled, but didn't say anything. After a few moments of tense silence, Yosuke waiting for Souji to say something, he sighed. "Sorry..." Souji looked over at him without moving anything but his eyes.

"I can tell that something is bothering you. You know you can tell me anything, right? I won't judge," Souji said. Yosuke squirmed a little.

"Y-yeah, but I don't really wanna talk about this..." he explained. Souji sighed. After a few more tense, silent moments he rolled over onto his side again, to face Yosuke.

"Can I talk about something that's been bothering me, then?" he asked. Yosuke blinked over at him. This was a first.

"Uh...yeah, sure, Partner, whatever you want," Yosuke replied. Souji nodded, and looked for a second like he was steeling himself for some kind of confrontation. Yosuke gulped.

"Would it really be that bad, if Kanji was gay?" he asked. Yosuke, who hadn't been expecting a question like that, rather spectacularly managed to choke on air. For a minute or so all he could do was sputter and cough, while the question rang loudly in his head. Would it be bad? He didn't know.

"W-what exactly did you mean by that, Partner?" Yosuke finally asked, and Souji sighed.

"Would you hate him?" Souji asked. Yosuke raised an eyebrow.

"No?" he replied. "I mean, he's a cool guy all things considered, and as long as he doesn't get any ideas about _me_ -"

"Well, what if he _did_?" Souji interrupted. Yosuke went pale. "What if he _did_ get ideas about you? Would you hate him _then_?"

"D-don't tell me Kanji actually _does_ like me, I-" Yosuke managed to stammer, sitting up abruptly. Souji sighed again, disappointed.

"He doesn't. He really is straight, you know, he just has trouble talking to girls," Souji informed him. If that was supposed to calm him down, it totally _wasn't_.

"You saw his Shadow!" Yosuke protested. Souji was sitting up now too, facing him.

"And I also saw your Shadow," Souji pointed out, sternly. "And I know that isn't how you are. That isn't how Kanji is either."

"W-what brought this on all of a sudden, anyway?" Yosuke asked. Brilliant, Yosuke, just change the topic of conversation, direct it away from this...

"That comment you made in the tent the other night," Souji replied. Yosuke flinched. "It was really uncalled for, Yosuke. I didn't know what to say at the time, and...it really hurt Kanji's feelings, you know?"

"I'll apologize the next time I see him, then! Geez, it was just a joke-" Yosuke started.

"And is the way you're visibly uncomfortable around him a joke too?" Souji pressed. Yosuke couldn't look at him anymore, turning to direct his attention to a nearby cluster of trees.

"I-I mean, that's...you can say all you want that he isn't like that, but that damned bathhouse and his stupid shadow scarred me for life, man," he explained. It felt like his stomach was churning. He _hated_ this, hated feeling like this...

"So if he actually was gay you would hate him," Souji concluded. Yosuke ripped his focus away from the trees to look at Souji, frustrated.

"I would _not_!" he protested. Souji frowned.

"You would just be uncomfortable and rude around him, then," he accused. Yosuke sighed.

"Th-that kind of stuff just creeps me out, okay? I can't help it!" he replied.

"Why?" Souji asked. Yosuke floundered for a second.

"Because it just does!" he exclaimed. Agitated, he finally had to stand up and walk away a few paces, trying to calm down the shaking in his limbs. What the _hell_ was Souji's problem all of a sudden?

He heard Souji get up, too, and slowly approach him, as if he was a skittish wild animal or something. He hunched his shoulders and very pointedly didn't look at him, even when he stepped in front of Yosuke.

"I didn't mean to upset you, Yosuke," he apologized. Yosuke folded his arms and stared at the dirt. "I'm just trying to figure out what the problem is. Kanji is a member of our team now, and I need everyone to be able to work together."

"We work together just fine," Yosuke spat.

"No you don't. You're so nervous and agitated around him that it makes him nervous, too, because he thinks he's doing something wrong," Souji explained. Yosuke didn't reply, so Souji pressed on. "Why do you hate the idea of someone being gay, so much that if someone like Kanji is even a little bit not straight you can't even get along with him?"

"It's not just the liking guys thing," Yosuke finally huffed out. "I'm...I guess I'm jealous of him."

"Jealous?" Souji asked, clearly taken aback. Yosuke nodded.

"He's goes around beating people up and acting all tough, and even with the rumors going around that he's gay, he's still more accepted in this stupid town than I am."

"...ah," Souji said, after a moment of silence. Yosuke nodded.

"It's so frustrating. I'm not even...I haven't done anything _wrong_ and everyone but you guys and my folks looks at me like I'm some kind of _bug_ when they see me. If there was _that_ kind of rumor about me? I don't think I'd be able to show my face around here."

"So it isn't about his Shadow at all, then?" Souji asked. Yosuke grimaced.

"Maybe a little. I mean, come _on_ , you gotta admit that thing was creepy!" he replied.

"Aesthetically, yes," Souji admitted, with a shrug. "But we've been over this. His Shadow is not him. Why can't you accept that and not be so tense around him?"

"I just don't...I don't know, I don't want him to suddenly start hitting on me or something, it would be _gross_ ," Yosuke hedged, after a minute or so. Souji chuckled in response, and Yosuke frowned. "What's so funny?"

"No offense, but even if Kanji _did_ actually swing that way you are not his type at all, Yosuke," Souji explained. Yosuke gaped.

"And how do you know that?" he asked. Souji raised an eyebrow...or at least Yosuke thought he did anyway. Damn bowl cut.

"Believe it or not, we are actually good friends. We talk to each other," Souji explained, voice dripping with sarcasm. Yosuke rolled his eyes. He did believe it, though. He'd seen them hanging out quite a bit in the last few weeks, actually. It had started to worry him, make him think that maybe Souji was...

"But that's beside the point," Souji continued, making him snap back to attention. "Suppose that it wasn't Kanji. Would any guy making advances at you creep you out?"

" _Yes_!" Yosuke answered, dumbfounded at his partner's sheer idiocy. "Wouldn't it creep _you_ out?"

"Not really," Souji dismissed, with a shrug. Yosuke gaped at him in disbelief. "Why would it creep you out?"

"B-because! It's weird!" he protested.

"If a girl started hitting on you would _that_ be weird?"

"Of course not!"

"Then why would it be weird if it was a guy?"

"I...I don't know! I guess...because I could turn the girl down and she'd actually stop?"

"What?" Souji asked, concerned. "What makes you think a guy _wouldn't_?"

"Y-y'know, all time time in manga and TV dramas, it's always guys being all...not taking no for an answer, and all that!" Yosuke explained.

"...that's manga and TV, Yosuke," Souji sighed. "You _do_ know most guys aren't like that? Are _you_ like that?"

"No! Of course not!" Yosuke exclaimed, taken aback.

"Am _I_ like that?" Souji asked. Yosuke sputtered.

"I don't think so? I mean, I..I hope not?" he asked.

"I am a perfect gentleman, thank you," Souji replied, his voice light and teasing, hoping to cheer Yosuke up a little. It did nothing to lift his mood, because Yosuke would have rather been doing nearly _anything_ than having this conversation right now with Souji. He swallowed.

"I...I don't want to talk about this anymore, okay?" he pleaded. Souji frowned.

"I know you don't, but this is important," he replied. Yosuke groaned.

"What do you want me to say, Partner? Do you want me to say I'm magically okay with gay guys hitting on me or something?" he hissed.

"No, of course not. I'm just trying to get to the root of why you're so nervous around Kanji, so we can try to fix it," Souji repeated.

"And I _just said_ , gay guys are creepy!" Yosuke protested.

"Why?" Souji asked, and Yosuke wanted to tear his hair out in frustration.

"Haven't you been _listening_?" he cried.

"Have you?" Souji countered. He was suddenly a little closer to Yosuke than Yosuke was comfortable with, but he didn't want to back away, either. "Do you really believe that all gay guys are going to force themselves on you and not take no for an answer?"

"W-well no, but I mean-"

"Why does someone's sexual orientation matter so much to you, anyway? Why would someone being gay suddenly be a reason for you to not get along with them?"

"I...you know! They're always acting all like...flamboyant and stuff! That's weird, right?" Yosuke protested.

"You know, most gay guys aren't like that," Souji replied. Yosuke blinked. "In fact, most gay guys are indistinguishable from straight guys for the most part."

"H-how do you know that?" Yosuke asked, suddenly alarmed. Souji didn't respond at first, biting his lip and looking away from Yosuke for a long moment, before turning back.

"Yosuke, I need you to promise me that no matter what I tell you, you won't run away. Okay? Please just...listen to what I have to say," he requested. Yosuke swallowed, feeling himself start to break out into a cold sweat.

"H-haha Partner, you sound so serious all of a sudden..." he replied. His mouth was dry.

"Yosuke, _please_ ," Souji asked again. He looked him in the eye this time, and Yosuke nodded, hesitantly.

"Okay," he agreed with a nod. Souji was silent for a second, before finally squaring up his shoulders, standing straight, and looking Yosuke in the eye again.

"I'm gay," he said. For a second, all Yosuke could do was stare at him, mouth open in shock, unable to process what he'd heard. "That's how I know most gay guys aren't flamboyant and overbearing, like Kanji's shadow. That's why I know Kanji isn't gay. I'm gay."

"...are you sure?" Yosuke finally asked, still in disbelief. Souji rolled his eyes, with a sigh.

"Yes, I'm sure," he replied. Yosuke didn't fail to notice the slight tremor in his voice, or the way his hands were shaking a little, but he wisely decided not to mention it.

"But you're so...so normal!" Yosuke protested. Souji gave him a flat look.

"It's almost like sexual orientation has nothing to do with personality, isn't it?" he asked, in a complete deadpan.

"Okay. Okay, but, like...how do you know that you're gay?" Yosuke asked. To his credit, he only sounded _slightly_ panicky.

"I just know. I know girls are nice, sure, but I feel no romantic or sexual attraction to them...but I do feel that way about...some guys," Souji explained. Yosuke swallowed.

"Oh," he replied. It was all he could think to say. Part of him was screaming at him to turn tail and run away as fast as he could, but he'd promised Souji, and he knew, he _knew_ that if he did that would be the end of their friendship, and he didn't want that. He didn't want that at all. Was it stupid and hypocritical to make an exception just for Souji? There was no way Souji would force himself on him, or make him uncomfortable, or not take no for an answer. Souji hitting on him wouldn't be creepy at all (quite the opposite, in fact). But what if Souji didn't want to be friends, now? What if all this time, he'd secretly hated Yosuke for the way he'd been acting? What if this was his way to tell Yosuke that he didn't want to be friends anymore? Yosuke started to panic at that idea.

"I still want to be friends!" he suddenly blurted out. Souji looked startled.

"...good?" he asked, and Yosuke sighed in relief.

"I mean...I wouldn't blame you if you hated me for how I've been acting this whole time," he continued.

"I don't. In fact I...I actually like you," Souji confessed. He managed to hold Yosuke's shocked gaze for a couple of seconds before turning completely away from him, to face the river. "I hope that we can still be friends after this, but I understand if you...um, j-just please keep this a secret, okay? You of all people should know what could happen in a town like this where-"

But Yosuke wasn't listening to him anymore. He couldn't hear him over the pounding of his own heart in his ears. Souji liked him.

Souji. Souji _liked_ him. Souji liked _him_.

"Partner," he managed to choke out, interrupting the increasingly harried stream of Souji's speech. Souji turned to him, startled, and without really thinking about it, Yosuke lunged forward and kissed him.

Or, at least, he tried. But he lunged too fast, and Souji flinched back, and he forgot to tilt his head so he ended up just...ramming his forehead against Souji's.

"Wh-why the _fuck_ did you headbutt me?" Souji stammered, hands covering his face as he staggered backwards.

"I was trying to _kiss_ you!" Yosuke protested, hands over his face in a similar state. That had hurt!

"You were _what_?!" Souji demanded, hands suddenly closing around Yosuke's wrists and pulling his hands away from his face. His eyes were watering a little, still stinging, but he managed to make out Souji's startled face.

"I like you too!" Yosuke answered. Souji stared at him for a few seconds, shocked to complete silence and stillness, before Yosuke decided to try again, slower this time, tilting his head to the side and pushing his head forward. His lips met Souji's gently, and Souji sucked in a shaky breath through his nose, hands still closed around his wrists, and kissed back.

It wasn't like it was his first kiss, or anything, but it certainly felt like a first kiss to Yosuke. They were both nervous and trembling, and even though Yosuke had done this before he was incredibly worried that he was doing it...wrong, somehow? Was he moving his lips right? Was there something different he was supposed to do when kissing another guy? Surprisingly, it didn't feel that different from kissing a girl, not really. It was just lips, but at the same it wasn't _just_ lips, it was _Souji's_ lips, against his lips. What surprised him the most was how _nice_ it was, though. Kissing Souji felt _really_ nice.

"You _hypocrite_ ," Souji accused when they finally pulled apart, but he had a smile on his face anyway. Yosuke did too. He should have been frowning or bright red with embarrassment or _something_ , but he was just smiling, helplessly. His forehead still stung.

"I've felt like this for a while and I didn't know what to do," Yosuke explained. "I didn't...I don't want to be like Kanji's Shadow. I can't imagine myself feeling like this about any other guy, but for some reason you... _you_..."

Souji let go of his wrists and tugged him forward with a hand on his hip, pulling him into another kiss. When they finally broke apart, Souji just took Yosuke's hand and led him back down to the riverbank to sit down.

"So you like me, even though I'm a guy," Souji started. Yosuke nodded, with a little blush. "But you still think gay guys are creepy?"

"Th-the ones that act all gross and flamboyant are," Yosuke protested. "You think so too, right Partner?"

"I think that you probably have more to worry about from 'normal' looking guys than them," Souji replied, with a sigh. "Just because someone acts like that doesn't automatically make them 'gross', Yosuke."

"But I mean! It's weird!" Yosuke replied, with a frown.

"From your perspective. From their perspective I'm sure you would be weird - judging someone based on their percieved sexuality and not on their actual character," Souji explained. Yosuke blinked, his mouth dropping open.

"...huh," was all he could say in response. Souji had a point, as much as he hated to admit it.

"I'm not asking you to start dressing in drag and flirting with men or anything," Souji continued. "Just try to be a little more open-minded and stop being so defensive around Kanji, okay?"

"...sure," Yosuke sighed. "I can admit I've been an ass to him. I'll apologize."

"Although I have to say, you would probably look pretty good in drag," Souji added. He laughed at the horrified look that Yosuke gave him.

 

* * *

 

That day on the riverbank had changed...pretty much everything for Yosuke. He didn't magically start finding girls any less attractive, in general, or start finding guys attractive in the slightest...except for Souji. If anything, he started to find Souji even _more_ attractive, now that he was letting himself start to notice things about him. He still felt weird about thinking that his best friend was hot, to be sure, but he didn't have to constantly berate himself for it now. And if his thoughts turned a little dirty a few times (more than a little dirty, more than a few times) he didn't have to have the internal Gay Crisis any more, because he'd accepted the fact that he was gay...for Souji at least.

Over the next few weeks, things were busy and chaotic. Between school, their part-time jobs, the TV world, and having to sneak around behind basically everyone's backs, they'd had precious little time to do much of anything. Lunch alone on the roof, study sessions mostly at Souji's house, and the occasional walk on the mostly deserted riverbank were all the time they were afforded, but they used that time to slowly and carefully make their way from quick kisses to making out. And though Yosuke had left several of their study-turned-making-out sessions with an unwanted boner, he was incredibly hesitant to bring up the topic of sex.

How long into a relationship were you supposed to wait for that sort of thing? Were the rules different for gay guys? How in the world was he supposed to bring up the topic anyway, without dying of embarrassment? And then there was the fact that Yosuke wasn't a hundred percent sure that he was even okay with the idea. He'd touched himself more than once to the idea of Souji's hand or mouth on his cock, but when he tried to picture the opposite, himself trying to do anything for Souji...he couldn't wrap his mind around the idea. And on one rainy night when he'd been particularly horny he'd come really hard to the idea of being inside Souji, but after a lot of careful consideration, he only managed to freak himself out trying to picture it the other way. So really, he was okay with things being a _little_ gay, but not _too_ gay - and that wouldn't be fair to Souji, right? So he just tried to ignore it when he got hard in the middle of them making out, and hoped that Souji either didn't notice or didn't care.

Naturally, that didn't last very long. Souji eventually took things into his own hands - literally - one evening while they were studying in his room. They were making out on the couch and Souji was leaning onto him a bit more than usual, and all of a sudden his hand was on Yosuke's crotch, fingers gripping gently at the outline of his hardness. There was no way it was an accident, either - it was _way_ too purposeful. Souji pulled away and gave him a look that said 'is this okay', and Yosuke didn't think he was capable of words at the moment so he just kissed him, hand moving to close around his wrist and push his hand a little harder against his boner. That was apparently all the encouragement he needed, because before Yosuke could even comprehend he'd unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them down enough to pull him out of his pants.

As it turns out, another person touching your dick? Fantastic. Yosuke came mortifyingly quickly, but Souji didn't seem to mind. By the time Yosuke's mind stopped reeling from the first orgasm not caused by his own hand, Souji was already pumping his own dick to completion.

"S-sorry," Yosuke panted, watching Souji wipe the mess off of his hand - both his own mess and Yosuke's. "I should've...returned the favor, or something."

"It's fine," Souji assured him, with a patient smile. "And if you don't want to do it to me, that's fine too."

"B-but I-" he started to protest, and Souji leaned over and kissed him, to silence him.

"I did that because I wanted to, Yosuke. I don't want _you_ to do anything you don't want to, okay?" he replied. Yosuke just bit his lip and nodded, and Souji smiled at him and finished cleaning off his hand.

Yosuke wanted to, though. Now that he knew how incredible it felt, even just having someone else's hand on your dick...he wanted to share that, he wanted to make Souji feel as good as he felt.

So the next time they were together and Nanako was out of the house, he pushed Souji down onto the couch and declared, in an annoyingly nervous-sounding voice, that he was going to get him off. His hands had shaken a lot more than he wanted as he unbuttoned Souji's trousers, and he'd hesitated so much that he was worried his partner would eventually start to go limp, but eventually, with trembling, fumbling hands, he'd reached out and touched him. In the end, Souji had pushed their dicks together and jerked them both off while Yosuke gripped the couch with shaking hands, but the attempt had been made.

The next time, though, Yosuke managed to do it right, spurred on with a chorus of moans and sighs that nearly made him cum in his pants. Souji returned the favor by giving him a blowjob. He managed to last slightly longer than the first time Souji jerked him off, but not by much. His only response, once he remembered how to speak, was 'that was incredible'. Souji just frowned and assured him that he'd do better next time.

It was a while before Souji was able to make good on that promise. They'd had to make do with quick makeouts and hasty hand jobs to tide them over for a few weeks. But eventually, the opportunity came, and so did Yosuke. Very quickly - too quickly for his tastes, even, but it wasn't like he could have helped it. He had no idea how Souji had done it, but as soon as he felt Souji slide all the way down his cock, bury his nose in his pubic hair and swallow around him - shit, he was done for. 'I've been practicing by eating weird things out of the fridge', Souji had explained. Yosuke still had no idea what he was talking about or how he'd done it, but he knew that a mere hand job wasn't going to cut it in response to _that_.

Yosuke's nervous, clumsy attempt at a blowjob was wildly unsuccessful. With wounded pride he had begrudgingly jerked him off instead, frowning the whole time. He was mostly frowning in disappointment at himself though - as soon as his mouth had closed around Souji's dick, warning bells had started going off in his head, and he just _couldn't_ stop the swell of panic that filled him, the idea that if he did this he was admitting he was for real gay. 'It's alright', Souji reassured him. Sure, it was alright with _Souji_ , but it wasn't alright with _him_.

Attempts two, three and four were just as unsuccessful, though Souji assured him he was making great progress. Souji, meanwhile, was becoming some kind of _sex god_ or something, seeming to get better every time he sucked Yosuke off. Yosuke managed to last a bit longer each time, but that was a feat that Souji seemed to be actively trying to make more difficult every time. As soon as Yosuke got used to one new thing, Souji would throw a curveball at him - feeling Souji's throat around him, feeling him hum as he sucked him off, the frankly impressive things his tongue could do, reaching up to caress his thighs, or fondle his balls...finally, Yosuke decided he'd had enough.

"How are you _doing_ that?" he asked, obviously frustrated. Even though he'd made the attempt at returning the blowjob only to give up and jerk him off instead, he was _still_ feeling slightly dazed from his earlier orgasm.

"Doing what?" Souji asked, looking up from the manga he was reading.

"Being...so good at giving head! How? Have you been practicing or something?" Yosuke asked. Souji chuckled.

"It's mostly intuition," he replied. Intuition, huh?

The next time, he didn't wait for Souji to make the first move. He pushed him down onto the futon with a smirk that felt more confident that he actually was. He wasted no time in getting them both out of their clothes and closed his lips over Souji's dick, determined this time to get him off without using just his hands. So he just tried to let 'intuition' take over. That meant mostly doing everything Souji did - or at least trying. He could tell from the gasp that Souji liked it when he hummed, and the way he groaned when he reached up to cup his balls was a good sign. Try as he might, though, he just couldn't seem to get very much of the length into his mouth, and that seemed to be equally frustrating for both of them. Sucking on the tip and pumping one hand up and down the shaft seemed to work, though, and he still felt a swell of pride (and arousal) when Souji finally gasped 'I'm coming' in time for him to pull off the dick and catch his release in his hand.

It was enough for Souji, who reassured him that it was fantastic and very enthusiastically returned the favor, but. But. It wasn't enough for _Yosuke_. The feeling of his dick completely encased in wet warmth, feeling Souji's throat muscles contract around the head of his dick, the slide, the pressure, the _heat_ \- Yosuke wanted Souji to be able to feel that. It was just - no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't seem to _not_ think about how "gay" this all was. He knew it was all mind over matter, but every time he tried to take too much of Souji into his mouth he choked, and he couldn't quite get rid of the idea that maybe it wasn't working because he wasn't _gay_...

And then, one fateful afternoon, Souji texted Yosuke to inform him that Nanako was staying at a friend's house and Dojima was going to be working overnight. Meaning they had the house to themselves all night. All night.

'We don't have to do anything', the text read, 'but I'm buying lube and condoms just in case.'

Souji wanted to have sex. Not oral sex, or mutual hand jobs, but actual for real _sex_.

Yosuke thought back to how hard he'd orgasmed at the idea of being inside Souji. He almost immediately agreed.

Souji wanted to have sex. Yosuke wanted to have sex. Given how insistent he'd been just a few weeks earlier that he was 100% straight, Yosuke was a little surprised at how _badly_ he wanted to have sex with Souji, actually. But what if Souji wanted things the other way around - what if he wanted to fuck Yosuke? Yosuke was a little upset at just how nervous that actually made him feel. _Scared_ , even. If he said he didn't want to...no, Souji wouldn't be mad, of course not. But the idea wouldn't leave his mind - if Souji wanted sex and Yosuke _didn't_ , what if they ended up breaking up? Never before had a short shift at Junes been so much _agony_ for Yosuke. In the end, Souji had assured him, yet again, that they didn't have to do anything Yosuke wasn't ready for. Souji _did_ want to fuck him, but only if he was ready, only if he wanted it too - and if that day never came, he was okay with that, too.

Finally, after a lot of nervous fumbling (Souji was nervous too, which had actually been a big encouragement for Yosuke) they actually managed to have sex. Yosuke, to his own horror and frustration, came even faster than he had the very first time Souji had touched him. It was like the first time he was in Souji's throat, though - the tightness, the pressure, the heat - all of it had overwhelmed him, and had him coming in short order. Embarrassed, annoyed and frustrated with himself, he had only been able to give Souji a shaky hand-job in return and about a million apologies, to which Souji just calmly told him it was okay. It _wasn't_ , but there wasn't anything he could do about it right now.

The next time he lasted a little longer, and a little longer the next. Eventually he figured out that it had a lot to do with the positioning. Up until now he'd been letting Souji straddle him, for fear of hurting Souji. When he finally got up the nerve to pin Souji to the futon instead, he lasted a _lot_ longer. He liked being in control of the situation, come to find out. And Souji, unexpectedly, liked not being in control if the fact that he actually came _before_ Yosuke was any indication.

Souji _really_ liked it, as it turned out. And every time Yosuke wondered _why_ , exactly, his traitorous thoughts just kept telling him that it was because Souji was gay and Yosuke wouldn't understand because he wasn't. Every time he thought about what it might be like to have Souji pinning him to the futon, the swell of panic was enough to make his stomach roll. Despite that, or maybe _in spite_ of that, he eventually told Souji that he wanted to try things the other way. Souji had been slow and careful and considerate and gentle, but Yosuke had been nervous - too nervous. Instead of the toe-curling pleasure he'd been expecting, judging by Souji's reactions, it had mostly just...hurt. The guilty look on Souji's face afterwards told Yosuke everything he needed to know - Souji had enjoyed it, but he could tell Yosuke hadn't.

'Because it's gay and you're not like that' his traitorous mind supplied. He hadn't gotten any better at giving head, either, not even _close_ to the level Souji was at. He worried that eventually Souji would get tired of him not being able to give as good as he could get. They tried again, a couple more times, but every time he gagged on Souji's dick, every time he felt nothing but stinging and discomfort, his mind gleefully pointed out that it was probably because he wasn't made for this. He still liked girls, and he still didn't like any other guys but Souji. He was trying, sure, but not making any progress.

It was frustrating.

So he turned to the internet, and the internet pointed him to...bananas.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Y-you do realize we're in the middle of a very crowded festival, right?" he pointed out. Souji grinned.
> 
> "Oh...I know," he said, and Yosuke felt himself jump a little at the sheer heat in that response. 
> 
> "...you're enjoying this," he accused, lamely. Souji laughed.
> 
> "Guilty as charged," he replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My life got eaten by Voltron and Pokémon Go, and I'm in the middle of working on two new costumes for Otakon in like a week and a half, which explains why it took me so long to update this fic but doesn't explain why I'm updating this fic instead of working on my cosplays...

It wasn't that Yosuke had necessarily wanted the chance to explore the festival with one of the girls for nefarious reasons, or anything. The _old_ him, the one only interested in girls, the one _not_ dating Souji Seta, would have jumped at the chance to get any one of the girls to himself, in a yukata, alone at the festival. But that was the old him. It was kind of amazing, thinking about how far he'd come, really.

He _had_ been a little bit nervous, though - when Rise suggested pairing off he _knew_ she was talking about Souji, and he knew Souji wouldn't cheat on him in a million years, of course, but still... he'd been looking forward to having fun at the festival with _everyone_ , and Souji especially.

"There's really no other way that could have gone, is there?" Souji asked, and Yosuke sighed.

"Yeah, I guess not. If we _had_ paired off one of us would've had to tag along as a third wheel or, like, go home or something. Probably me," Yosuke complained.

"I thought we were going as a group," Kanji huffed. "Kinda glad though, I sure as hell didn't wanna go off by myself with one of the girls."

Yosuke briefly wondered how they _would_ have split up, anyway. It was obvious Rise was interested in going off with Souji, that much was certain. All things considered, Yukiko got along better with Kanji than him, so he probably would have ended up paying for steak skewers all night for Chie. His wallet was thanking Teddie already.

"I'm sure we can all meet back up later," Souji said. "Might as well make the best of this. I'll go get us something to eat, any requests?"

Yosuke was immediately suspicious. Why wasn't he just inviting them along?

"Nah, I'm good sempai. I think I'm just gonna sit down for a bit," Kanji replied, shuffling over and dropping down onto a bench. Before Yosuke could invite himself along with Souji, the other had already turned and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Yosuke alone with Kanji.

Awkward.

He'd stopped teasing Kanji about his shadow and sexuality a while ago, but he hadn't apologized for the comment he'd made during the school camping trip yet. He'd meant to, he really had, but he and Kanji didn't hang out alone very often, and more often than not they were in different battle parties in the TV world.

"S-so," Yosuke started, trying and failing not to be nervous, as he sat down beside Kanji, not too close but not so far away that he gave the impression of being wary of him. Well, he _was_ wary of him, but not for the reasons his behavior would have suggested.

"What's up, Sempai?" Kanji asked, and though his tone was casual, Yosuke could see the stiffness in his shoulders and hear the way his casualness was forced. He thought back to that day on the riverbank, of Souji asking him to get along with Kanji. He really had been trying, but apologizing for being a homophobic shit was difficult, and if he didn't get it out in the open they would _never_ be comfortable around eachother. He swallowed.

"Uh...listen, Kanji, I owe you an apology," he started.

"For what?" Kanji asked, brow furrowed. "Wasn't _your_ fault Teddie ran off with the girls." Yosuke almost wanted to roll his eyes and say 'you know what', but he very wisely didn't.

"Not for that. Look... I was a huge jerk to you. Always acting nervous around you, and giving you hell about your Shadow and...that comment from the school camping trip. Totally not cool. Sorry." He sighed. Admitting all this was difficult, but having out in the open was surprisingly...nice. He continued staring at the ground for a while, before Kanji's continued silence finally started to get to him. If he wasn't going to accept Yosuke's apology, then fine! He looked up to tell him that, only to find him staring, mouth open in shock. "...what?"

"I never thought I'd hear you apologize for all that," Kanji said, finally closing his mouth. He still looked shocked. "Hell, I didn't think you even _knew_ you were doing anything wrong."

"I..." he started, but fuck, Kanji was right. He hadn't really known - it had taken Souji calling him out on it for him to understand what he'd been doing. "...I didn't, actually, but Souji made me realize."

"Ah, I shoulda known," Kanji replied, nodding sagely. Yosuke frowned. On the one hand he wanted to protest that he probably would have figured it out _eventually_ but even _he_ knew that was bullshit. Kanji was right yet again. He huffed out an annoyed breath.

"Anyway, I'm sorry, and I'm trying to be better about it, all right?" Yosuke replied. Kanji nodded, a small smile creeping onto his face.

"Thanks, sempai," Kanji said. "And uh, for the record if you...if you ever want to y'know, talk about anything, I'm here too."

"S-sure," Yosuke replied. It had been awkward and fumbling, but he could tell Kanji's offer had been genuine. He almost wanted to tell Kanji that he and Souji had been dating for over two months now, but Souji wanted to keep it a secret. He liked having a 'secret romance'. Honestly, all that was going to do was make it all that much worse when their friends _did_ find out - and make no mistake, they would find out eventually - and make them all mad at them. Well, probably at _him_ actually, because why would Souji be the one hiding a secret gay love affair from them? And then there was the matter of that bet they'd made, and telling Kanji would be cheating. Not that either of them had actually bet anything, so there weren't stakes, but still, it was the principle of the thing! And even if he _did_ decide to cheat and tell Kanji, how in the world was he supposed to phrase it? 'Oh by the way Souji and I have been dating behind everyone's backs for about two months lol' just wasn't going to cut it.

"Something troublin' ya, Sempai?" Kanji asked, cutting through his thoughts and making him realize he had been frowning at the ground for quite some time.

"It's...it's nothing," he replied, after a minute. Kanji nodded.

"Still mad about Teddie takin' off with the girls?" he asked, and Yosuke, glad to have an excuse to change topics, nodded with a frown.

"That dumb bear," he sighed.

"Hopin' to have one of the girls to yourself?" Kanji asked, with a mischievous grin. Yosuke snorted.

"Nah. I'm with you, I was hoping to have some fun with everybody," he replied. Kanji's eyebrows shot up.

"...really?" he asked.

"Uh...yes?" Yosuke replied. Kanji blinked at him with a dumbfounded look on his face.

"You're telling me _you_ didn't want to go around the festival with any of them?" he asked. Yosuke frowned.

"What's with that 'you'? And no, not particularly," he replied.

"Not even Rise?" Kanji asked, and Yosuke quirked an eyebrow up at that.

"As if I could have even if I wanted to! She only has eyes for Souji," he replied, and if he sounded a little jealous he was sure Kanji would mistakenly think that he was jealous of Souji here. "Besides, we both know if I went off alone with one of the girls I would've been stuck buying steak for Chie all night."

"A fate worse than death," came a joking voice from behind them, scaring both of them half to death. Yosuke made a pathetic yelping noise and tumbled forward off of the bench, while Kanji let out a much more dignified "whoa!" and jumped to his feet. Souji just laughed, grinning at them from behind the bench, arms and hands full of food and drinks.

"God damn it, Partner, you scared me half to death!" Yosuke accused, standing up with a huff.

"I couldn't help myself," Souji explained, leaning over the back of the bench and dropping three cans of TAP onto it. He then extended a hand toward Kanji, holding out a meat bun for him to take. In his other hand, he was holding...

"Ugh, really?" Yosuke groaned, bringing a hand up to rest over his eyes, trying to will away the blush on his cheeks. There were two chocolate bananas in Souji's other hand. It wasn't like they were out of place or anything, they were a staple of festivals, after all, but Souji had certainly done this on purpose.

"It's just a good thing I'm not a Shadow. Sneaking up on you two was too easy," Souji joked. Yosuke peeked up at him between two fingers to find him grinning mischievously and holding out one of the chocolate bananas for him to take. He swallowed, eyes darting over to Kanji, who had unceremoniously shoved the entire meat bun in his mouth, but was watching them with interest. Damn it. He sighed and snatched the banana out of Souji's hands with a grimace. At least the rest of the group wasn't here.

...maybe the chocolate would distract him from the flavor and texture? God, he hoped so.

Glaring at Souji the entire time, he started to eat the chocolate banana. It was actually pretty good, all things considered. It was covered in a hardened shell of dark chocolate and had chopped nuts mixed into the shell. Either Souji remembered that Yosuke wasn't a big fan of super sweet chocolate or it was a lucky coincidence, but either way, it wasn't as awful of an experience as he thought it would be.

"Bananas again, huh?" Kanji suddenly asked around a mouthful of meat bun, and Yosuke nearly choked on a bite.

"Hm? Oh, I guess you're right," Souji replied, looking nonchalant. Yosuke could tell he was acting, but probably only because he _knew_ he was. Hopefully Kanji couldn't tell...

"Some kind of running joke between you two?" Kanji asked, watching Yosuke struggling between swallowing the bite of banana and wanting to spit it out. He finally managed to swallow it and cough a few times, still glaring at Souji.

"S-something like that," he wheezed. Kanji was silent in response, looking between the two of them with an increasingly suspicious look on his face. Yosuke felt himself starting to blush.

"Forgive me if I'm way off base here but...are you two..." he started, with a frown.

"A-are we what?" Yosuke asked, still wheezing a little from choking.

"...dating?" he finally asked, looking like the word was uncomfortable for him to say. The two of them stared at him for a second, shocked, and then looked at eachother.

"...were we being too obvious?" Souji asked, and neither Yosuke or Kanji was expecting him to say that.

"Y-you mean you are?!" Kanji squawked, mouth dropping open. Yosuke stared at Souji for a second, and Souji stared back, impassive. Finally, Yosuke's mouth quirked upwards into a smirk.

"Alright then, pay up, Partner. Kanji found out first," he gloated. Souji rolled his eyes.

"We never set an amount for the bet," he pointed out. Kanji made a surprised noise.

"Just, I dunno, a couple thousand yen, or you pay for the next movie we go watch or something," Yosuke replied, shrugging. "The amount isn't important, the important part is _I was right_ ," he gloated. Souji shrugged.

"Alright, fine. You were right," Souji sighed. "We can go see a movie this Sunday if you want."

"Wait, wait, wait, _hold on a second_. You two are _actually_ dating and you had a bet going on which one of us would figure it out first?!" Kanji interrupted, sounding both flabbergasted and, strangely, kind of happy.

"Well sort of. The bet was who would figure out out _last_ ," Yosuke explained, shooting a smug look over at Souji. "I picked Chie."

"Wait, does that mean...Sempai, did you pick _me_?" Kanji asked, and he actually looked hurt. Souji winced.

"Well, you can be fairly oblivious to some things..." Souji started. Yosuke coughed the word "Naoto" into his hands, and Souji pretended not to hear. "But I am wrong in this case, and I apologize."

"Uh...apology accepted," Kanji replied, shooting a paranoid look at Yosuke, who just shrugged in response.

"And we would appreciate if you could keep this a secret from the others. We want them to all figure it out on their own," Souji continued. Yosuke snickered. Figure it out on their own...more like Souji wanted to have a forbidden secret relationship for as long as possible.

"I...I dunno, the girls'll be mad as hell when they find out and I don't want 'em coming after me because I knew and didn't tell 'em," Kanji protested.  
  
"Hmmm...why don't we have another bet, then?" Yosuke proposed, with a maniacal grin. Both guys turned to look at him, baffled. "Let's bet on whether Chie, Yukiko or Teddie will figure it out next."

"What about Rise?" Kanji asked.

"Given her psychic abilities in the TV, it's difficult to believe she _doesn't_ already know," Souji explained. Kanji frowned.

"You got a point there...but I know Rise. Even if she knows she'll probably deny it until the end. She _really_ likes you, Sempai, if you haven't noticed," Kanji pointed out.

"I've...noticed..." he replied, clearly uncomfortable.

"Well, my money's still on Chie," Yosuke interrupted, with a shrug.

"I'm bettin' on Rise," Kanji replied, with a smirk. Souji looked thoughtful.

"Yukiko or Teddie...hmm. On the one hand, Teddie _lives_ with you, Yosuke, so he's bound to find out eventually. But Yukiko is very smart, so...hmm," he mused, looking back and forth between Yosuke and Kanji.

"C'mon, man, just pick one!" Yosuke sighed. Souji 'hmm'ed a few more times before apparently coming to a decision.

"I think...Yukiko," he said. Yosuke grinned.

"Alright then, it's settled. I think Chie will figure it out last, Kanji thinks Rise will admit it last, and you think it'll be Yukiko. How much are we wagering?" Yosuke asked.

"I dunno...2000 yen?" Kanji hazarded. Yosuke and Souji both nodded.

"The pact is sealed," Yosuke grinned. Souji rolled his eyes.

"So then...how long _have_ you two been dating?" Kanji asked, and from the sound of things he still couldn't actually believe it.

"Since July," Souji answered, and Yosuke nodded.

"...huh," Kanji replied, and then looked thoughtful for a second. "Sure explains that apology a few minutes ago."

"H-hey!" Yosuke protested. Kanji laughed.

"Nah man, it's cool," he replied, and Yosuke felt himself deflate a little.

"Apology?" Souji asked, looking between them. Yosuke flushed.

"I, uh, I finally manned up and apologized to Kanji for being a homophobic little shit during the camping trip," Yosuke admitted. Souji smiled.

"Oh? I'm proud of you," he said, and Yosuke was about to growl at him for being patronizing, but between his tone and the honest affection on his face, Yosuke could tell he hadn't actually been kidding or sarcastic. He really _was_ proud of him. He blushed.

"Y-yeah," he replied, awkwardly. Souji turned to Kanji.

"So, what made you suspect that we are dating, anyway?" he asked. Kanji shrugged.

"I dunno. You two have seemed a lot closer lately, and then today Yosuke-sempai said he didn't want to spend the festival with any of the girls, and that apology..." he trailed off.

"So you blew our cover," Souji said. Yosuke sighed.

"Not on purpose, okay!" he protested.

"...I guess you'll just have to make it up to me later?" Souji purred, suddenly looking very coy and blinking bedroom eyes at Yosuke. Yosuke stammered, blushing instantly.

"Uh..." Kanji interrupted, trailing off with an incredibly uncomfortable cough. "Well, I guess you two probably wanna enjoy the festival alone for a while so...I'm...gonna go find the girls."

"Y-yeah, thanks man!" Yosuke replied, with an awkward grin. Souji waved, and the two of them watched as he all but bolted away. As soon as he was gone, Souji turned those sultry eyes on Yosuke again. He gulped.

"Y-you _do_ realize we're in the middle of a very crowded festival, right?" he pointed out. Souji grinned.

"Oh...I _know_ ," he said, and Yosuke felt himself jump a little at the sheer heat in that response.

"...you're enjoying this," he accused, lamely. Souji laughed.

"Guilty as charged," he replied, sliding up to Yosuke and gripping him by the hip before the other could step back.

"Listen, Partner, I know this is...uh, kind of your _thing_ but I really, really don't want to do this right here!" he protested. Souji stopped where he was, face inches away from Yosuke's, before pulling back and nodding. Yosuke let out a breath of relief. Souji's hand slid off of his waist and into his hand. He stepped back and tugged at Yosuke's hand, grip light as if to say that Yosuke didn't _have_ to come with him if he didn't want to.

Yosuke wanted to.

"Where are we going?" he found himself asking only a few moments later as Souji pulled the two of them further into the dense forest that surrounded the shrine. Souji didn't answer, just threw a smug look over his shoulder at him. He huffed but followed without complaint. It didn't take long to get to where they were going to. It was a small clearing around one large tree. Yosuke could still hear the sounds of the festival, but they were muted, distant.

"We're behind the main shrine. Nobody ever comes back here," Souji explained, even as he was shoving Yosuke back against the tree and leaning in to kiss him.

Kissing Souji was great. When they'd first started going out they were both nervous and awkward, but just like basically everything else about their relationship, it only got better the more they practiced...and Souji was probably better at it than he was. But Yosuke at least tried to give as good as he got, gently nipping at Souji's bottom lip, sucking on his tongue when it was pushed into his mouth, forcing his own tongue into Souji's and rubbing it against the roof of his mouth... Soon enough they were pulling back from eachother, Yosuke feeling a little fuzzy-headed and Souji looking smug as hell.

"I've always wanted to have sex back here," Souji leaned in to whisper in his ear. Yosuke gasped when he nipped at the earlobe playfully. "Even before we started going out I thought about bringing you back here and just...fucking you _senseless_."

"Partner," Yosuke moaned, hands fisting in the back of Souji's shirt and pulling him closer. The press of an erection against Yosuke's was not unexpected or unwelcomed, making his breath hitch.

"But you know what I want even more than that?" Souji continued, rolling his hips against Yosuke's and groaning at the friction.

"What?" Yosuke panted.

"I want you to fuck me as hard as you can against this tree," Souji purred.

" _Shit_ ," Yosuke swore, his hips thrusting against Souji's involuntarily in response. Souji's lips descended on his again and Yosuke couldn't help but kiss back. There was barely any finesse in the kiss this time, they were both way too turned on for that. It was sloppy and a little aggressive, and Yosuke couldn't have possibly found it hotter. Somehow in the midst of their sloppy makeout they managed to reverse their positions, Souji with his back against the tree and Yosuke trying his damnedest to get their pants off as quickly as possible without breaking the kiss. In the end he just broke their kiss with a frustrated grunt and fell to his knees, impatiently tugging down Souji's pants. He cut off Souji's amused chuckle by immediately leaning forward and taking his erection into his mouth, eliciting a surprised gasp from him instead. Pulling back a moment later, he licked teasingly down Souji's length, one hand on the base and the other patiently guiding Souji's left foot out of his pants, then nudging his legs apart. It was only then that it occurred to him that...there might be a problem.

"Partner," he breathed, pulling back from his erection. "We don't have anything to use as lube." Souji chuckled, a low sound that went straight to Yosuke's dick.

"Look in my left front pocket," Souji instructed. Yosuke raised an eyebrow did as he was told, and lo and behold...there was a small plastic bottle of lube and a condom tucked away in the pocket. He gaped up at Souji.

"Did...did you plan this?" he accused. Souji laughed.

"Not really. I just...like to be prepared," Souji explained. Yosuke grinned.

"Oh yeah? Well prepare for _this_ ," he countered, ducking his head to the side a little to mouth at Souji's swollen and evidently quite sensitive balls. The strangled moan that left Souji's mouth made it totally worth it. It _was_ a little loud, though, and it made Yosuke start to worry that someone might overhear them. Or they might hear what sounded like noises of distress and think someone was being attacked...

"K-keep it down, will you?" he hissed, pulling back. Souji groaned, and with his face right next to Souji's cock Yosuke couldn't have possibly missed the way it twitched in response. He sucked in a breath in surprise.

"Shit dude, you really _do_ get off on this, don't you?" he asked. Souji just groaned again.

"P-please just...c'mon, Yosuke, I need this," he replied, cheeks flushed dark pink, and he wouldn't meet Yosuke's eyes when he looked up at him. A smirk slowly spread across Yosuke's face.

On the one hand, he _was_ worried about getting caught. On the _other_ hand...damn this was hot.

"Oh yeah?" Yosuke purred, as he twisted off the little cap of the bottle, coating his fingers with the cold liquid. "So you _need_ this, huh? How _much_?"

" _So much_ ," Souji gasped, eyelids fluttering shut as he felt Yosuke press one slick digit against his hole.

"You need this badly enough that you'll risk _getting caught_ , huh?" he asked as he slid the finger in, with surprisingly little resistance. Souji moaned in response, dick twitching again at the words 'getting caught'. Yosuke chuckled, pulling his finger back, which was met with a whine from Souji, only to gently press two fingers in to take it's place.

"Any minute now," Yosuke started, as he scissored his fingers to gently prepare the other man, "someone could hear all the noise you're making and come to investigate." Of course, he punctuated this with prodding at Souji's prostate, causing him to let out a whine, his intention all along. Yosuke chuckled. "How embarrassing for you, right? They'd see polite, proper, well-dressed Souji Seta with his pants on the ground and another guy fingering him." Never mind the fact that it would be incredibly embarrassing for _him_ too. It was actually pretty embarrassing to even be _saying_ all this, but the look on Souji's face and the _noises_ he made in response, and the way his dick kept twitching, was making Yosuke harder and more turned-on than he'd ever been in his life. He really wanted to get out of his pants, but there was simply no way he was going to stop what he was doing now to do that.

"Yosuke," Souji groaned, and Yosuke looked up, taking in his flushed face and glazed-over, lust filled eyes. For a second he was almost too distracted by the utterly hot image of debauchery he was seeing to pay attention to what Souji was saying to him, but as it turned out it was just a plea to go faster, which he readily complied with. A third finger joined the first two and Souji threw back his head against the tree with a moan that Yosuke suspected was intentionally loud. Now that he didn't need to see what he was doing, Yosuke took Souji back into his mouth, wrapping his free hand around the base of his dick while he licked and sucked and bobbed at the head. He felt Souji thread a hand into his hair, cupping the back of his head. He didn't push or pull or even try to hold him still, just put his hand there, and that was unexpectedly really hot and really nice. Not long after that he heard Souji exhale a shaky breath, which usually meant he was about to say he was ready.

"O-okay Yosuke, that's...I'm ready..." he panted, and Yosuke smirked. _Called it_. Instead of stopping altogether, though, he pulled his fingers out of Souji and braced his hand on Souji's hip, unwrapping his other hand from his dick and leaning forward more, taking him all the way into his throat. Souji made a startled choking noise, clearly not expecting that, and Yosuke would have smirked again if his mouth wasn't so deliciously full. Hands free now, he reached down and undid the button and zipper on his pants and shoved them and his boxers down just enough to free his achingly hard cock.

Deep throating all those bananas and riding the dildo weren't the only things Yosuke had practiced, as he demonstrated by quickly opening the condom packet and sliding it expertly onto his dick without even needing to look. He _did_ need to look to figure out where the bottle of lube had ended up though, so somewhat regretfully he pulled back, gently easing Souji out of his throat. He almost laughed at the way Souji slumped back against the tree, panting hard, as if he was a puppet whose strings had been cut. He looked up to meet Souji's eyes with a face-splitting smirk. Souji shook his head, probably in an attempt to get some semblance of order back into his thoughts.

"I'm so lucky to have you," Souji said, and Yosuke's smirk melted into a shy, almost bashful grin.

"Hey, I'm about to fuck you against a tree, I'd say _I'm_ the lucky one," Yosuke countered, finally looking down both to hide his blush, because saying stuff like that was still really embarrassing, and also because he still needed to find the lube. He snatched it up triumphantly a second later.

"Seriously though, Partner...thanks," Souji said, and Yosuke got an absurd little thrill, even now, at hearing him say the word 'Partner'.

"Y-you're gonna kill the mood," Yosuke protested, standing up. Souji chuckled.

"Well then, let me fix that," he said, and then his gaze shifted into a _leer_ , and he purposefully and slowly looked from Yosuke's face to his dick, and then off in the direction they'd come from where Yosuke could still hear the din of the festival. "You'd better make this quick, so we don't _get caught_."

"Oho, just for that I'll make sure to go as slow as possible," Yosuke replied. Souji grinned, then he turned around, planting his hands firmly on the bark of the tree and sticking his ass out in Yosuke's direction, even managing to give it a tantalizing little wiggle. Yosuke chuckled, but seeing Souji ready and almost desperate like this was still really, really hot. He uncapped the lube again and coated his dick with it, marveling at how even just the feeling of his own hand was really good right now. It probably had a lot to do with the view.

"C'mon, Partner, hurry up and give it to me, quick, before someone discovers us here!" Souji encouraged, and even though he knew Souji was (mostly) kidding, the urgency in his voice made him give a low moan in response. He barely managed to get the cap back on the bottle before he just dropped it into the grass at their feet. They were still so close that all Yosuke had to do was reach out and grasp Souji's hips, bend his knees a little to get the angle right, and then his dick was sliding inside Souji. Souji was hot and tight and felt amazing, as always, and judging from the way he was panting, Souji was enjoying himself too. Yosuke thought back to a few weeks ago, the first time Souji had fucked him and he'd actually _enjoyed_ it, and he could only hope that was how Souji was feeling. It didn't take long for him to press all the way inside.

"Can I move?" Yosuke asked, leaning over so that his mouth was right next to one of Souji's ears.

"God, _please_ ," Souji begged, pushing back a little against him for emphasis. Yosuke chuckled and pressed a kiss against the back of Souji's ear, leaning back to a more suitable angle. He started things out slow as always, determined to draw this out for as long as he could just to heighten the tension. If anyone _did_ somehow find them out here, so far away from the festival and in a secluded area behind the shrine, they would see Souji, the charming and smart transfer student, with his shirt pushed up and his pants around his ankles, soft and creamy thighs and long slender legs fully exposed, dick hard and probably leaking all over the unfortunate tree. They'd see Yosuke too, the much loathed Junes boy with the loud mouth and terrible grades, but they'd see him pounding overall perfect boy Souji Seta against the tree so hard that he was starting to groan and cry out at the end of every thrust. Yosuke just hadn't seen the appeal at first, and certainly the idea of someone _actually_ finding them was mortifying, but there really was something to the thought that they were here, just meters away from a busy festival where their friends were probably looking for them, and they were having hot, raunchy sex.

Souji was starting to make louder and louder noises in time with their sex now, and as hot as that was, Yosuke should probably do something about that, right? So he took his hands off of Souji's hips and leaned forward, bracing his hands against the tree just underneath Souji's and letting himself lean against Souji's back, face near his ear again.

"C'mon now, Partner, you might want to keep quiet or someone will hear us," he purred into Souji's ear, and between that and the new angle that Yosuke was busily grinding into him at, Souji lost it. He moaned rather loudly and went totally rigid, eyes snapping shut and face contorting he threw his head back against Yosuke's shoulder and came, hard, right onto the tree they were leaning against. It didn't take long after that for Yosuke to come, crying out Souji's name in a voice that was probably a little too loud for what they were doing.

Yosuke came back to his senses to Souji pressing butterfly kisses to the side of his neck and face.

"W-we should probably put our clothes back on before someone _does_ find us," Souji said, and Yosuke groaned but nodded, leaning back and pulling out of Souji. He pulled off the condom and tied it off out of reflex, but then had to pause.

"Umm, Partner, what...what exactly am I supposed to do with this used condom?" he asked. Souji turned around with a shrug.

"Throw it away?" he said.

"Where?" Yosuke asked, incredulously.

"Back at the festival?" Souji replied.

"Oh what, I'm supposed to just carry a used condom back to the festival and hope we find a trash can before anyone _sees it_?" Yosuke countered.

"Put it in your pocket, then," Souji suggested, and Yosuke immediately recoiled in horror.

"What?! No! I'm not...what if it breaks? I don't want semen in my pocket, even if it's mine!" he protested. Souji frowned, looking down to think for a minute. Yosuke followed his line of sight and noticed the rather large and totally conspicuous splatter of cum on the tree trunk. "And anyway, what are we gonna do about _that_?" he continued, gesturing at it.

"That will go away on it's own...probably. But, um, I suppose we could bury the condom now and come back for it after the festival is over?" Souji suggested.

"I guess," Yosuke conceded.

  
And that was how they ended up with mud on their hands and grass stains on their pants when they rejoined the rest of the group. Souji's hair wasn't much more mussed up than usual, just a little sweaty and kind of rough in the back, but thanks to Souji putting his hands in Yosuke's hair it was all over the place. So much so that Chie couldn't help staring when they approached the group.

"Whoa, what happened to you two?" she asked, gaping. Yosuke sighed.

"I tripped and fell into a bush," Yosuke lied, with a huff. He gestured over at Souji. "Partner here fell in with me trying to help me out of it."

Everyone bought it...except for Kanji, who immediately burst out laughing. The girls and Teddie all looked at him, confused for a moment, before Yukiko started laughing too, the rest of them joining in not long after, including Yosuke and Souji.

"Y-you _would_ be that much of a klutz, wouldn't you?" Rise asked, through her laughter.

"That bush jumped out and tripped _me_ , okay?" Yosuke protested, warmly.


	5. The Beach Episode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "C'mon, Partner, I know you like doing stuff outdoors, but there's no way we can do that while we're here, right? This isn't like the festival, we can't just sneak off!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's freezing cold where I live so, naturally, I decided to write the beach chapter.

Souji looked good in his swimsuit.

No, that was an understatement. Souji looked _amazing_ in his swimsuit. The girls looked good, too, with their nice, feminine curves and clear skin, but by god it was a challenge for Yosuke to look away from Souji for even a second. Yosuke _knew_ how he looked without clothes on - had seen him naked an embarrassing amount of times now - but even though he knew how how he looked he still wasn't quite prepared for how _good_ he looked in that ridiculous pair of swim trunks. Maybe it was the sunlight washing over him, the summer breeze ruffling his hair, Yosuke didn't know, but - fuck - he was in trouble. He couldn't quite keep his eyes from following the lines of toned muscle up and down his chest and stomach, and knowing that he'd thoroughly mapped those lines out with his hands and tongue did absolutely nothing to calm his racing heartbeat. It seemed like as soon as he was able to break the spell and look away to join a conversation or answer a question, his traitorous eyes would be back, drawing slowly up long legs that had been wrapped around his waist on many occasions, or down toned arms that had held him down quite recently...

"Yosuke, are you okay?" Souji asked, finally noticing that he was being a little more quiet than normal. All he could do was slap a hand over his face and groan. What he wanted to say in response was something along the lines of 'I want to tear that swimsuit off of you and suck you off until you can't remember your own name.' What he said instead, was:

"I think the heat's messing with my head."

"I'll say!" Chie piped up, grinning cheekily at him. "You haven't drooled over me and Yukiko and Rise in about ten minutes! A new record!"

Yosuke sighed in response. In order to keep up the - ridiculous - act that he and Souji weren't dating, he had decided to turn up the 'definitely heterosexual' level to eleven. He'd made some...really innappropriate comments about their swimsuits. Souji's frown had made him want to just walk into the ocean and keep going until he drowned. He'd apologized almost immediately, and although they'd forgiven him - or at least he _hoped_ they had - the whole group had still been ribbing him about it all afternoon.

Today wasn't a very good day. Which sucked, because Yosuke loved the beach. He'd asked Souji, practically begged him to call off the bet and tell everyone about their relationship, but Souji had just accused him of being afraid of losing. Of course, he hadn't told him exactly the reason he'd wanted to call the bet off, and now he doubted he ever _would_ out of sheer embarrassment - it was because he wanted to do... _couple stuff_ on the beach. Sitting under an umbrella holding hands and watching the tide, walking along the beach at sunset together, sharing ice cream, floating together in the waves...

"Do you need a drink? Want to sit in the shade?" Souji asked, and Yosuke just nodded, because he couldn't think of anything else to say that wouldn't blow their cover. Secret relationships _sucked_.

They wound up sitting under the beach umbrella with a pair of cold sodas from a nearby vending machine, watching as the girls, along with Teddie and Kanji, attempted to build a sandcastle. Everyone was far enough away - and making enough noise - that there was no way they'd hear the two of them talking. Good. Trying to look nonchalant about it, Yosuke leaned against Souji, shoulder to shoulder, and Souji looked over at him, a little concerned.

"Hey," Yosuke started, suddenly feeling bashful. What the heck, Hanamura, you can suck a guy’s dick but can't tell him how you feel? Yosuke cleared his throat, trying to will away the blush that had formed on his cheeks. "You look really good in your swimsuit."

"Thanks?" Souji asked, with a chuckle. Yosuke rolled his eyes.

"No, no, I mean... _really_ good," he replied, hoping Souji would get it. Souji blinked, then smirked in response.

"How good?" he asked. Yosuke's face flamed, and he had to put a hand over his face again to hide his eyes, but he somehow managed to give a response.

"So good I wanna suck you off," he said, barely a mutter, but Souji shivered in response.

"I like the sound of that," Souji purred, and Yosuke sighed.

"C'mon, Partner, I know you like doing _stuff_ outdoors, but there's no way we can do that while we're here, right? This isn't like the festival, we can't just sneak off!" Yosuke protested.

"I think we can," Souji said, nudging Yosuke's shoulder. Yosuke lifted his head to see Souji gesturing toward where the others had been. They were now back in the ocean, chasing Teddie around as he swam desperately away from Rise and Chie, while Yukiko and Kanji laughed, their backs to Souji and Yosuke. Nobody was paying attention. Souji grabbed him lightly by the elbow, pulling up as he stood up, and slid his arm down to thread into Yosuke's hand. Yosuke immediately blushed, but let himself be led away by Souji. He kept glancing back over his shoulder, but none of the others even looked over in their direction, and soon enough Souji led them behind some rocks and they disappeared from view.

They walked for a while longer, Yosuke listening to the sounds of the waves and seagulls flying overhead with a little smile on his face as Souji led the two of them across the sand. The further away they got from the main beach area right next to the road, with the vending machines and umbrellas, the less and less people they started to see. Finally, after about ten minutes of walking, they found a section of the beach where a bunch of huge rocks jutted out of the sand and into the ocean. Smirking at him, Souji pulled Yosuke toward one. There was a crevasse in the rock, just big enough that they could squeeze through it and into a little area with a shallow pool of ocean water. Part of the rock jutted out overhead, partially blocking the sun and making the temperature inside the little rock formation about five degrees cooler. And, most importantly, they were almost completely secluded from the beach. Someone would have to really be looking to notice they were in there.

"Did...did you know this was here?" Yosuke asked, jaw practically on the sand in amazement. Souji laughed.

"No, we just got lucky," he replied. "I like that you think I'd plan something this elaborate though."

"I wouldn't put it past you," Yosuke replied, with a snort. Souji grinned, stepping up to come chest-to-chest with him, and pulled him into a kiss with a hand on the back of his head. Yosuke just let himself melt into the kiss, slow and languid and teasing, not desperate just yet - a hint of things to come. Finally free to let his hands wander over Souji's body like he wanted, he dragged them up and down Souji's sides and slid them over his back, eventually sliding them down the back of Souji's swim trunks to grab his naked ass and drag their hips together. Souji was already hard and Yosuke was certainly getting there, the press of his boyfriend's erection only exciting him more. They eventually broke away from eachother, and Yosuke grinned and pushed away from Souji a little, dropping to his knees rather gracefully. The sea water and soft sand felt good under his legs, cool in comparison to how hot his face felt when he looked up and locked eyes with Souji. As cocky as he'd sounded earlier, Souji was blushing down at him - a sight that Yosuke would probably never get tired of. Yosuke reached up eagerly and tugged Souji's swim trunks down his waist, just enough to expose his hard dick and tight balls, tucking the elastic waistband lovingly underneath them to expose them further. He absentmindedly licked his lips, and it must have been an incredibly lewd gesture, because Souji made a muffled noise in response and Yosuke glanced up to see him biting one of his fingers in anticipation. He grinned cheekily up at him.

"I'd love to take all day here," he purred, reaching out and trailing a fingertip teasingly along the underside of Souji's dick, from head to base. "I really would. I'd love to get you right on the edge of coming, then back off and make you calm down and do it again and again, but they're gonna notice we're gone." He curled his hand around the base of Souji's cock with that, finally leaning forward to press his tongue against the head. Souji whined, and Yosuke took him into his mouth without any more preamble. He squeezed his hand around the base, licking and sucking at the head for a few moments before impatiently leaning forward and taking in more. Spurred on by the encouraging pants and moans from his partner, he quickly worked his way down, bobbing and sucking and relaxing his throat to let the head sink further and further into his throat. The hand around the base instead moved to curl around his balls, earning him an encouraging groan. Yosuke leaned up on his legs and let himself slide all the way onto Souji's cock, tongue curling where his hand had been only moments before. His other, unoccupied hand slid easily into his own swim trunks and wrapped around his erection, stroking it in time with the pace he bobbed and sucked on Souji's dick. It didn't take long for Souji's breathing to speed up, for the dick in Yosuke's mouth to start to throb and pulse. Fingers slid into his hair and Souji started making needy sounds and moving his hips in little twitching motions against his face, and he was getting close. Yosuke stroked his dick even faster, desperately trying to keep up so that they could come at the same time.

"Wait," Souji suddenly gasped, and Yosuke blinked up at him, confused. This was new. Souji braced a hand against his chest, the other coming to grip his chin and Souji slid back, carefully, out of his mouth.

"S-souji, what?" Yosuke panted, and Souji, who had already started moving his hand furiously along his dick, blushed bright scarlet.

"Wanna try something," he managed to pant. Yosuke started to move back, but Souji shook his head. "N-no, stay there?" Yosuke blinked but obeyed, sitting uneasily where he was and watching as Souji bit his lip and closed his eyes, brows furrowing, as his dick started to twitch in his hand and he...came. All over Yosuke's face.

Yosuke yelped and started to flinch back, but managed to stay right where he was when Souji whimpered his name, hot streaks of cum shooting across his face and into his hair.

"W-what the hell, Souji?!" he finally barked, once it was apparent that Souji was done. But then he looked up at Souji, intending to glare at him, only to discover that he was looking at him with the most intense look of outright lust that he'd ever seen the other man wear, and he immediately shut up and felt his cheeks go hot.

"Sorry," Souji panted, though his face clearly said the opposite, "I just wanted to try it out once." Yosuke was still speechless at the look he was giving him, so he continued. "You look amazing like that, by the way."

"F-fuck off!" Yosuke stammered, finally looking down as his blush spread to his entire face and ears.

“I won’t do it again,” Souji added, sinking down to sit on his knees in front of Yosuke, who still refused to look up at him. Yosuke bit his lip, feeling himself blush somehow even _harder_.

It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the appeal. How much trashy hentai had he read that featured girls that looked practically orgasmic to have cum all over their faces? No, Yosuke understood perfectly well the appeal of coming all over someone’s face, of marking them as your own even briefly. It was possessive and intimate (and gross), but Yosuke _got it_. He just never thought he’d have it happen to him. And for that matter, he never thought he’d _actually like it_ when it did.

“It’s...fine,” he finally replied, daring to look up. Souji, despite his apologetic tone, was still giving him that hungry look. Embarrassed beyond all belief, he finally managed to add, “Just ask next time.” He had to look down at the sharp intake of breath from Souji.

“S-so, wait, you...you aren’t mad?” he asked, and Yosuke shook his head. “Good, because...you look so good like that, Partner, I may need you to suck me off again.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Yosuke grumbled, glaring up at him. Souji just smiled, not a smirk but one of his stupid, genuine, heart-melting smiles and...shoved Yosuke back by the shoulders. Yosuke toppled backwards with an indignant squawk, the sea water feeling ice cold on his burning head and shoulders as he splashed back into it.

“Souji, you asshole! What’s-” Yosuke protested, but was very quickly silenced by warm hands on his cold hips and a mouth and tongue wrapping around his still-hard member. Yosuke’s head fell back against the sand and water so fast that he almost got whiplash, back and hips arching against Souji’s mouth and hands gripping around fistfuls of wet sand as Souji engulfed him completely and started to swallow around him, sucking hard at the base of his dick. Warm, skilled hands rubbed and stroked at his balls, which had gotten an almost painful shock from the cold water. His swim trunks were tugged nearly all the way off as Souji sucked, and then warm fingers were massaging his asshole, prompting a moan and an encouraging twitch of his hips. Yosuke’s head and shoulders were practically underwater, his legs over Souji’s shoulders, and Yosuke would have protested the situation if he was capable of speech. As it was, all he could do was groan and try to move his hips. A wet finger slipped inside of him and pushed against his prostate almost immediately, and he tried to thrash in response, moaning in what he hoped Souji interpreted as approval. Souji’s throat around him, lips around the base of his dick, hand lovingly massaging his balls, and finger pressed insistently against his prostate...yep, it was too much. He wanted to feel pathetic for how fast Souji could make him cum, but he _had_ been pretty worked up before, to be fair...

“Can’t hold it, I’m gonna...fuck, Souji, I’m gonna come,” he gasped, and Souji suddenly backed off, hands withdrawing from his ass and balls, head moving back to slide him out of his throat, and Yosuke found himself whining in desperation. But then Souji had a hand on his hips to steady him and the other was wrapped around his cock, frantically jerking him off, and his dick was pointed _right_ at Souji’s face. And once Yosuke realized what Souji was doing, he was a goner. He came hard and fast, and Souji just closed his eyes.

Souji’s aim was off a little and it had mostly gotten in his hair and on his forehead, but all Yosuke could do was just stare for a few moments. Just stare, and think ‘That’s mine.’ It was definitely hot, to be sure, probably an image he’d remember for a long, long time. He just huffed out an exasperated sigh and let his limbs fall limp, splashing into the water, as he fought to catch his breath.

“What the fuck, dude,” Yosuke eventually rasped, eyes closed as he let the salt water wash over him. “All I wanted was to suck you off, and you just _had_ to go and make it kinky.”

“I take it you didn’t like it?” Souji asked. Yosuke cracked open an eye, to see him laying down next to Yosuke in the water, facing him on his side. The cum was still there - neither of them had washed it off yet, actually. Yosuke sighed.

“I never said that,” he replied, and Souji’s face _lit up_. Yosuke groaned. “You weirdo. Got any other secret fetishes stored away in there?”

“You’ll just have to find out,” Souji replied, winking. He sat up and leaned down to collect some salt water in his hand and splash it over his face. Yosuke heaved a big sigh and sat up to do the same. They might have to take a dip in the ocean to wash it off completely. But as gross as it felt, it had been _totally_ worth it.

What _wasn't_ totally worth it, though, was the glare they recieved from Chie when they finally made it back to join the group.

"Where _were_ you? We were looking everywhere - worried sick!" she admonished, and Yosuke just gave her an apologetic smile.

"We went for a walk," Souji explained. Chie glared at him and huffed.

"Why didn't you say anything, Sempai?" Rise demanded, pouting at him. "We thought you'd gotten swept out to sea or something!"

"Well, uh-" Yosuke started to reply, but Souji interjected.

"Didn't you see the note I left?" he asked. His face was a picture of pure innocence, which made it all the more impressive to Yosuke because he knew for a _fact_ that Souji was lying through his teeth.

"What note?" Rise asked, baffled.

"Musta gotten blown away or somethin'," Kanji said, with a shrug.

"Weird, I thought I left it under my soda..." Souji trailed off, with a frown. Nobody was bringing up the question of where in the world Souji would have gotten paper, but Yosuke was _not_ about to point that out.

"Well, whatever. Now that you're back, we can have lunch!" Teddie sang. And just like that, everything was back to normal.

...well, sort of normal. If Souji sat a little closer to Yosuke than normal, or held his hand when nobody was looking, or took a bite out of Yosuke's ice cream just to be "mean", well, Yosuke just tried his best to play it off but enjoy it at the same time. It wasn't quite what he wanted - and maybe he could convince Souji to come down here some other time, just the two of them, but it was good enough. 


	6. Souji is a bad boyfriend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> >> Did I do something wrong?
> 
> > Na bro, its dumb dnt wrry
> 
> >> Then why were you avoiding me all day?
> 
> >> Can we please talk about this?
> 
> > @ wrk bro
> 
> >> Yosuke, being at work has never stopped you from texting me before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Just when you thought there was never going to be a new chapter, I rise from the shadows to deliver you...this.

Yosuke was pouting. It was for a dumb reason, and he knew it, but he was still pouting, and his (secret) boyfriend was totally oblivious to it. Why was he pouting? Because they were standing on top of the hill overlooking Inaba - _their_ spot - in the dark, watching the fireworks as they exploded into colorful firey blooms in the sky, and it was a perfectly romantic setting and they weren't even holding hands. They were standing next to each other, and that was just about as close as they could get to any sort of affection, unfortunately, because...

 

They still hadn't told anyone else in the group. Kanji knew, but nobody else had figured it out yet, and Yosuke _hated_ it. He wanted to just tell everyone, get it out in the open and deal with it, and be able to just hold Souji's hand without worrying about it. He didn't care about the stupid bet at all! And for a dumb reason like Souji's weird (okay, Yosuke admitted, not _that_ weird) fetish for having a secret relationship. Ugh. It sucked. Yosuke Hanamura was a simple man and all he wanted to do was hold Souji's hand while they took in this incredibly romantic scene, and maybe give him a kiss on the cheek or something stupid and romantic and gay like that. And he couldn't. Thanks to his incredibly homophobic beliefs from before he met Souji and Kanji, he couldn't do anything even remotely not-straight without attracting the attention of the girls and Teddie. There was only so much he could pass off with a laugh and "no homo", after all.

 

If there was any solace to be had, though, it was knowing that this was cockblocking his stupid boyfriend too. Souji was probably trying his best to figure out a way to ditch the others for some more outdoor shenanigans, but that wasn't going to happen this time. There was no way. They had school tomorrow, and if the two of them stayed behind they'd have to convince the group that there was not only a reason for them to stay behind, but also convince all of them that no, they didn't all need to stay, really, just the two of them.

 

So yeah. Not happening. No alone time, no outdoor sexytimes, no holding hands, no smooching under the stars, no nothing.

 

It sucked.

 

So instead of getting to do anything cute or romantic with Souji he had to walk home with Teddie, grumbling and muttering under his breath. He had to assure Teddie several times that no, he wasn’t mad at him. Teddie assumed he wanted to try to score a private fireworks rendezvous with one of the girls, and Yosuke just let him think that without confirming or denying.

 

It sucked.

 

It sucked so much that he was still in a sour mood the next day, when they all returned to school. He showed up late on purpose, and didn’t even so much as greet Souji when he finally came into the classroom and flopped into his seat. After Kashiwagi had finished chewing him out for being late, and had moved onto a different person that came even even later than Yosuke, Chie leaned over to him, frowning.

 

“What’s up with you?” she whispered.

 

“Nothing,” he mouthed back, because he was really bad at whispering quietly and would one-hundred-percent get them caught.

 

“Sure,” she whispered back, still frowning, but leaned back anyway and pretended to listen to the increasingly boring lecture on being prompt and how tardiness was a ‘cancer that was plaguing their generation’ or something. God, Kashiwagi pissed him off sometimes. It almost, _almost_ made him miss King Moron’s lectures.

 

He continued his, admittedly dumb, ignoring of Souji all through lunch, though his stomach paid for it dearly. He rushed out of the classroom as soon as the last bell rang, giving some lame excuse of ‘work’ to Chie, who nearly swore after him.

 

>> Did I do something wrong?

 

> Na bro, its dumb dnt wrry

 

>> Then why were you avoiding me all day?

 

>> Can we please talk about this?

 

> @ wrk bro

 

>> Yosuke, being at work has never stopped you from texting me before

 

>> And you haven’t called me ‘Bro’ since before we started going out

 

>> What’s wrong?

 

> its srsly dumb

 

>> I’ll be the judge of that

 

>> You know you can tell me anything, right?

 

> last nite I wanted to hold ur hand n stuff

 

> it was rly romantic & i wanted 2 do

 

> like

 

> couple stuff

 

>> Oh

 

> @ the beach 2

 

> i dnt wanna do just the sex stuff

 

> the sex is gr8 prtnr dnt wrry

 

>> I’m so sorry, Yosuke

 

>> Can we talk about this in person?

 

> @ wrk prtnr

 

>> When does your shift end?

 

> 9

 

>> I'll meet you by your bike

 

> …

 

> K

 

Yosuke didn't know what to expect, honestly, but Souji waiting by his bike with a freaking _bouquet of flowers_ was not anywhere near it. He turned roughly the color of the poppies in the bouquet. At least he thought they were poppies. Yosuke didn’t know shit about flowers, okay, but he could tell that the bouquet had probably been lovingly crafted and the flowers were Yosuke’s favorite colors of fucking course, mostly orange with splashes of red and yellow and some white. Leave it to his stupid, thoughtful boyfriend to bring him the perfect bouquet of flowers after work.

 

“ _Idiot_ ,” Yosuke hissed, all but dashing the last few steps toward Souji and snatching the flowers out of his hand, “What if someone _sees_?!”

 

Souji raised an eyebrow, expression amused. “I thought you _wanted_ everyone to know?”

 

“Not _everyone_! Think about where we are, Souji!” Yosuke protested. “We’ve _talked_ about this. We’re in a small town in the middle of _nowhere_ and people already hate me here, the last thing I need is-”

 

Souji cut him off with a kiss.

 

 _Of course_ Souji cut him off with a kiss. It wasn’t as romantic as the movies made it seem. In fact, it just made him angrier. He shoved him away with a huff.

 

“I meant I wanted to tell the _Team_ , you dumbass, and maybe, like, my parents and Dojima-san? Not the entire town!”  he explained, seething. Souji had the grace to look embarrassed.

 

“...oh,” he finally replied, and, damn him, he was really cute when he was blushing like that. Yosuke just sighed.

 

“Come on, we should get going,” he said, grabbing Souji’s elbow with his unoccupied hand and dragging him away.

 

“What about your bike?” Souji asked, looking back.

 

“Don’t need it, ‘s got a flat tire,” Yosuke explained, with a groan. Once Souji had fallen into step with him, Yosuke let go of his elbow. He thought about grabbing his hand, but resisted the urge, as they were still close enough to Junes for it to be a problem. Ugh.

 

Souji eventually solved that problem for him, reaching out and grabbing his hand as soon as they had turned a corner and were out of sight of the department store. Well, as out of sight as you could get from one of the tallest buildings in Inaba, in any case. He felt Souji’s warm fingers lace through his and fought the urge to blush, failing miserably when he felt Souji start to rub his thumb gently across the top of his hand.

 

“So I was thinking,” Souji started, after a few minutes of companionable silence, “If you’re free on Sunday, we should go to Okina, just the two of us. We haven’t done that in a while.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Yosuke asked, and Souji smiled over at him, not one of his smirks or the fierce grins he’d have in the TV fighting Shadows, but a small, honest smile that made Yosuke’s stupid heart melt.

 

“As a date,” Souji clarified, and Yosuke felt himself blushing, _again_ , and nodded in response, not trusting his voice. It wasn’t like they hadn’t gone on dates before, but they hadn’t ever really _called_ them dates, primarily because they hadn’t really _felt_ like dates. Even after they started having sex, when they hung out it felt more like an extension of when they had been just friends. It was weird. They’d almost done this whole dating thing totally backwards. So this by no means was going to be a first date but, in some ways, it was. To Yosuke, at least.

 

“W-what do you have in mind?” Yosuke asked, and Souji shrugged.

 

“Go get lunch, see a movie, y’know...what we usually do in Okina,” he said, and Yosuke felt a little bit relieved that he didn’t have anything more grand than that planned. “...and maybe later, you can come back to my place and we can…” he trailed off, with a smirk and a wink, and Yosuke laughed. They were getting near Yosuke’s house, now, but Souji didn’t let go of his hand, and Yosuke didn’t want to let go either. Souji walked him right up to his doorstep like some kind of proper gentleman.

 

“And...the next time I can get the whole team together, we can tell them,” Souji finally said, and Yosuke almost felt his heart leap into his throat. “If you want to, that is.”

 

“I...yeah, I do,” Yosuke replied. He wasn’t looking forward to how angry the girls were probably going to get, specifically at him for a lot of reasons, but he was tired of keeping everything a secret. Souji nodded, and then, after quickly glancing both ways down the street, he leaned over and kissed Yosuke gently on the lips, before stepping back and pulling his hand away.

 

“Night, Partner,” he said, with a wave, and Yosuke was in some kind of awed stupor.

 

“Y-yeah, good night,” he replied, and watched him walk away, noticing not for the first time that his hair glowed like silver in the streetlights. Gah. He didn’t think he could have possibly fallen any more in love with his partner, but here he was, standing out on his porch holding a bouquet of flowers, staring after him like some kind of lovestruck _idiot_.

 

Sunday couldn’t get here soon enough.

 


	7. The Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were holding hands on a public train on their way to a date in Okina, and for some reason that made Yosuke happier than all of the sex. He didn’t understand it, but, he decided, why fight it?

It was Sunday.

It was Sunday, and Yosuke was realizing (not for the first time) that his wardrobe, while cheap and comfortable and practical... was kind of abysmal. He had no fashion sense. To be fair, he hadn’t really needed _or_ wanted a fashion sense before. He’d never worried about how his clothes looked before, as long as they weren’t dirty or smelly and didn’t have holes in them, and the colors vaguely didn’t clash. He’d never put any thought into what to wear when he hung out with Souji _before_ ... aside from how easily removable his clothing was, anyway. This was so stupid. Why was he worrying _now_ ? It wasn’t like _Souji_ was going to judge him for his poor taste in clothing. It was just… well. They were about to go on a _date_ . They were going to be doing things like holding hands and gazing longingly at each other and maybe even kissing, _in public_ , where anyone could see them. On the one hand that terrified the part of Yosuke’s brain that really _didn’t_ want anyone to know about them. On the other hand, it also made him acutely aware that people were going to _see them_ and while Souji could wear just about anything and make it look great, Yosuke on the other hand…

Well, he didn’t want to make him look bad. That was all. That was why Yosuke was digging around in the back of his closet, hoping that maybe the version of him that had lived in the city had maybe had better fashion sense, but to no avail. He’d worn most of his city clothes way too much when he first got to Inaba, and had to throw most of them away. So he was stuck with his school uniforms and the clothing he’d picked up from Junes, mostly. He’d never really noticed before, but he had a _lot_ of v-neck shirts. Like...almost entirely v-neck shirts. And most of his clothes were red, orange or white...

It didn’t take long for Teddie to notice his predicament.

“Yosuke, what are you doing?” he asked, leaning out of his closet-slash-makeshift-bed. He’d been reading some kind of manga.

“Trying to find something to wear that isn’t awful,” Yosuke grumbled in response. Teddie’s eyebrows shot up.

“You want to look _nice_ for your date with Sensei?! How beary unlike you!” Teddie exclaimed, tossing aside his manga and leaping out of his closet-bed with a flourish. Yosuke winced at the ‘date’ comment, having to stop himself from angrily berating the bear. To be fair, Teddie had called his hangouts with Souji ‘dates’ long before the two were _actually_ dating. Up until now he’d always admonished the bear for it, but today he decided to just let it slide and see what happened. He wondered, more often lately, if he should tell Teddie about him and Souji before they told the others, but he knew that if he did the bear wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut until they actually told the girls, and if they found out from _him_ it would be an even bigger disaster. 

“We’re goin’ to Okina, and I just don’t wanna make him look bad, that’s all,” Yosuke replied, evenly, and Teddie gave an over exaggerated nod in response 

“A noble sentiment, Yosuke!” he exclaimed, and Yosuke wondered which TV drama he’d picked up the word ‘sentiment’ from, “But unfortunately, your fashion sense is unbearably bad!”

“You’re one to talk, mister skinny jeans and flow-ey shirt!” Yosuke replied, with a huff. 

“I like my shirt! It brings out my bear-eutiful eyes!” Teddie argued. They glared at eachother for a moment before breaking into laughter.

“My fashion sense _is_ terrible,” Yosuke finally conceded, and Teddie nodded in agreement. “But ‘bear-eutiful’ is bad even for _you_.” Teddie nodded again. 

“I don’t think Sensei will care what you’re wearing, and if anyone else cares, they don’t matter,” Teddie said, and Yosuke blinked over at him. That...actually sounded like advice? Good advice??

“...thanks, Ted,” Yosuke replied, with a grin. Teddie returned it, but it quickly turned into a smirk.

“But I _have_ noticed that Sensei stares at you a lot more than normal when you wear those red pants,” he added, and Yosuke choked. While he worked to dislodge the _nothing_ from his windpipe that he’d somehow managed to choke on, he looked over at Teddie, who was giving him a shit-eating grin. Did he _know_ ? Did he actually know and had somehow managed to keep it a secret from the rest of the group _and_ Yosuke _and_ Souji?  

“T-Ted, what the _hell_ , you can’t just _say_ stuff like that to-” Yosuke sputtered, but was interrupted by his phone chiming.

>>Want to meet at the train station?

“Aw, _crap_ , I’m running out of time,” Yosuke panicked. He heaved a big sigh and stalked over to his closet, pulling the red pants and a matching white shirt out with a burning face while Teddie cackled at him.

* * *

 

In the end, he got to the station a little later than planned. Okay, a lot later than planned. He’d remembered a little too late that both his bike and scooter were in various states of broken, so he’d had to walk, which had added to his lateness a little bit. Souji still looked up from his phone with a smile and assured him that he hadn’t been waiting long, even though Yosuke knew he had been. 

“It’s fine,” Souji reassured him, as Yosuke braced his hands on his knees and fought to get his breathing under control. He may or may not have jogged most of the way here, breaking into an impatient sprint when he was close enough to the train station. “And you didn’t have to run.”

“I wanted to,” Yosuke finally managed, straightening up and giving him one of his signature Yosuke grins. “Wanted to see you as soon as I could.”

He enjoyed the flush that brought to Souji’s cheeks a little more than he probably should have.

“Well, the train is almost here,” Souji countered, turning to look at the sign that held the arrival and departure times. Awww, even his ears were red, so cute. “No harm done.” He didn’t mention that it was the _second_ train. Man, Yosuke really _was_ late. He started to apologize again, but thought the better of it - if  Souji was saying it was fine, it really _was_ fine. So Yosuke used this opportunity to get his bearings. Or he would have, but Souji turned to look at him again, a soft, fond smile on his face, and for some reason it occurred to Yosuke _now_ to look at what Souji was wearing and - oh. He knew he was a little biased and, he tried to reason with himself, they were just clothes, just normal-ass _clothes_ , but… _damn_. 

“Something wrong?” Souji asked, suddenly looking concerned.

“Y-you look nice!” Yosuke choked out. Ugh, why couldn’t he get a grip? He’d seen this boy naked and writhing and totally out of his mind with pleasure, why in the world were some _clothes_ having such an effect on him? It was just that Yosuke couldn’t remember ever seeing Souji wear anything other than black or white or a shade of grey, and today he was wearing, well...colors. It was just a simple light blue dress shirt and dark blue slacks, true, but it was still more color than anything else Souji had ever worn, for one. And also, something about the way he’d rolled up the sleeves of the dress shirt to just below his elbows was _doing things_ to Yosuke.

“Thanks,” Souji replied, with a smirk, and Yosuke abruptly realized that he’d been staring, probably with his mouth open like an idiot, for a bit longer than he probably should have. He shut his mouth abruptly and fought down a blush. 

“I-I feel under-dressed, that’s all,” he bit back, folding his arms over his suddenly inadequate t-shirt, distorting the red birds splashed across it. Souji laughed. 

“No, no, I can safely assure you that I’m _over_ -dressed,” he countered. “It’s fine. You look great, and I promise I’m not ‘just saying that’ to make you feel better.” Yosuke started to reply to that with a ‘yeah right’, but he noticed Souji’s eyes lingering on his pants, specifically on his ass and...shit. The bear was _right_!

“Th-thanks,” he stammered instead, feeling his face go hot from the attention. He knew that Souji liked his ass, but this was…

...well, kind of nice, actually. A much-needed boost to his self-esteem, if he was being totally honest with himself. On that note, he let himself smile and nudge Souji with his shoulder, watching as his eyes moved away from where they were lingering to look at his face, a little sheepish.

“What do you have planned for today, oh esteemed Leader?” he asked, and Souji chuckled.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” he replied, with a wink. Even though it was super cheesy, that wink still made Yosuke’s face go hot. Ugh, Souji and his stupid charm were going to be the death of him.

* * *

 As it turned out, Yosuke being late had actually been a _good_ thing. The first train to Okina from Inaba was usually packed full of people, but the second was much more sparsely populated, as they were discovering. There were in fact only two other people boarding the train with them, an older lady that Yosuke thought he had seen around Junes a handful of times, and a middle-aged man he’d never seen before. Souji didn’t seem to recognize either of them. They both sat down on the opposite side of the train, the lady getting out a pair of knitting needles and some yarn, while the man proceeded to bury his face in a newspaper. Souji and Yosuke sat down on the other side of the train, side-by-side, and Yosuke filled the relatively short ride by chattering on about school and homework. At some point, Souji dropped his hand on top of Yosuke’s where it was sitting on the seat between them, and, with a quick glance at the other side of the train car to make sure the other riders weren’t paying attention, Yosuke smiled and curled his hand into Souji’s.

They were holding hands on a public train on their way to a _date_ in Okina, and for some reason that made Yosuke happier than all of the sex. He didn’t understand it, but, he decided, why fight it? So he leaned a little against Souji’s side and kept chatting away, only pulling away when the train pulled into Okina Station. Once they were out of the train, Yosuke turned to Souji.

“So, where are we off to first?” Yosuke asked, only to find Souji looking something up on his phone.

“Even with the delay, this should work…” he muttered to himself, putting his phone back in his pocket and turning to Yosuke with a smile. “I hope you’re in the mood to watch a horror movie this early in the morning.”

“...eh?” Yosuke asked, but Souji just boldly reached out and took him by the hand again, leading him in the direction of the movie theater. “The only other option is a historical drama.” 

“Are you sure we can’t just go watch _Captain America_ again?” Yosuke asked, with a pout, and Souji chuckled.

“You complained about having to read subtitles the entire time,” Souji pointed out, and Yosuke groaned. 

“Yeah, but now that I’ve seen it once I can just pay attention to the fight scenes!” he protested.

“Do you really not want to see the horror movie?” Souji asked, slowing to a stop and turning to Yosuke. Yosuke shrugged.

“Those are more Yukiko’s scene,” he replied, with a shrug. “I mean, I’m not a _wuss_ or anything, I’ll go watch it, but I…” he trailed off, suddenly embarrassed about what he was about to say.

He wanted to spend time looking at _Souji_ , not at a movie screen. It was dumb.

“Well, I was planning on grabbing lunch for us afterwards, and then doing some shopping...we could just do that instead?” Souji suggested. 

“Sounds great,” Yosuke replied, but frowned. “But I mean...if you really wanted to go see the movie, I can suck it up and deal with-” 

“It’s fine,” Souji cut in to reassure him. “It...well. I was thinking that nobody would be watching a horror movie on a Sunday morning, so we could make out in the theatre and nobody would notice…” 

“Oh,” Yosuke replied, his surprise melting into a smirk. “That's pretty smooth.” Souji blushed, and Yosuke barely managed not to laugh. “Well, skipping the movie is probably for the best then. Making out with you is no fun if I can’t be in your lap, anyway.”

“I’ll remember that,” Souji replied, with a smirk of his own. They held eye contact for a few seconds before dissolving into laughter. 

“C’mon then, let’s go get lunch. You lead the way,” Yosuke prompted, and Souji, who was still holding his hand he noticed, gave a nod and tugged him in the direction of a row of shops nearby.

They ended up eating at a cafe called “Chagall”. Yosuke just got a sandwich and some soda, but whatever drink Souji got smelled...interesting. He wasn’t about to question it, though - his boyfriend had weird taste in food sometimes. While they were waiting on their food, Yosuke kept getting the weirdest feeling...almost like they were being watched. After the third time he glanced around the cafe with a frown, Souji nudged his foot under the table. 

“What’s up?” he asked, and Yosuke shrugged.

“Feels like we’re being watched…” he replied, unsure, and Souji frowned, too. 

“Worried that there might be Yasogami students here? Or people that will recognize you from Junes?” he asked, and Yosuke blinked at him, startled. He...hadn’t been, actually. Though now that Souji brought it up, he probably _should_ have been. 

“N-no, that’s not it,” Yosuke defended. “I just...it’s just a weird feeling. Besides, if anybody did see us, would they really think we’re on a date? We aren’t really doing anything...uh, date-like.”

“I can change that,” Souji offered, with a smirk and a gleam in his eye. He leaned across the table, but Yosuke stopped him with a hand on his forehead.

“Nuh-uh. Whatever you’re drinking smells weird and I do _not_ want to taste it,” he replied. Souji sat back with a huff. 

“It’s supposed to increase my charm…” Souji explained, trailing off with a pensive look at the coffee. Yosuke rolled his eyes. 

“You already have plenty of charm, Partner, honestly,” he replied in a huff. Souji smirked over at him. 

“Enough to win you over, anyway,” he replied, and Yosuke sighed. 

“Yeah, well…” he admitted, blushing. Before the conversation could go any further, the waitress arrived with their food. While they were eating, Souji “accidentally” nudged Yosuke’s leg again, resulting in the two of them playing a game of footsie under the table, dissolving into breathless laughter. The look of honest affection that Souji gave Yosuke was almost too much for him to handle. He would have thought he was past the stage of having his heart trying to beat out of his ribcage just from a look from his partner, but _boy_ was he wrong. Souji had _way_ more charm than was necessary. He didn’t need to be drinking weird coffee.  

“So, where to next?” Yosuke asked, stretching his arms above his head as they exited the cafe. 

“We could just wander around until we find something interesting?” Souji suggested. Yosuke shrugged, but followed along behind him when he left. The weird thing was...he still felt like they were being watched. But when he looked around, he didn’t really _notice_ anyone looking in their direction, nor did he see anyone he recognized. It was weird. Maybe he really _was_ just paranoid?  

They wandered into a bookstore, a used video game store, a flower shop, and a music store. Souji had found a couple of books he was interested in, Yosuke got a video game he hadn’t been able to get through Junes, and Souji had pointed out all of the flowers he’d gotten for Yosuke’s ‘apology bouquet’. Yosuke admitted that he had put the flowers in a vase and left it downstairs, where his mother assumed it was for her from his father, and his father assumed he’d finally done something nice for his mother. In the music store, at Souji’s behest and with permission from the owner, he’d managed to strum his way through about half of a song before getting embarrassed and putting the guitar back. Before they knew it, it was already late in the afternoon, and Souji was pulling him toward the station. 

“We’re heading back so soon?” Yosuke asked, with a little bit of a frown. Despite the embarrassment, he’d really been having fun in the music store…

“Nanako should be leaving to go visit a friend soon, and Uncle will be heading to work,” Souji replied, throwing a devious look over his shoulder. Yosuke smirked in response.

“Oh, so we have the place to ourselves?” he asked, and Souji nodded. 

“Not all night but for a while, yes,” Souji replied. Yosuke chuckled, even though he was blushing.

When they got to the station, they discovered they had about ten minutes left before the next train was set to arrive.

“I’m thirsty, want anything?” Souji asked, gesturing toward the nearby vending machines. Yosuke just shook his head with a frown. The weird feeling of being watched was back. Souji apparently noticed his unease, because instead of heading to the vending machines, he stepped closer into Yosuke’s personal space. “Hm? What’s wrong?” 

“I dunno, I just feel like we’re being watched again…” Yosuke sighed. Once again, looking around turned up nobody looking at them and no-one looked familiar. “...it’s nothing. I don’t know why I’ve been feeling like this.” 

“I’ll get you a TaP,” Souji announced. Then, after a quick glance around - the station wasn’t exactly deserted, but there were still a handful of people - he leaned down and surprised Yosuke with a quick peck on the lips. Yosuke couldn’t help the way his face went hot as he watched Souji saunter off to the drink machines...or the way he couldn’t tear his eyes away from his partner’s very nice ass. He frowned and turned himself bodily away, pretending to examine the departure and arrival times. His phone chirped in his pocket, which wouldn’t have been weird if it wasn’t the specific chirp that he’d assigned to Souji’s texts. He glanced over at Souji with a confused look on his face, only to see him motion at his phone. 

>> Come over here, but be quiet 

What the…? 

Now he was really weirded out, but he just pocketed his phone and made his way across the station to where Souji was standing. Souji held a finger up to his lips to make sure he didn’t say anything, and then motioned for him to stand next to where he was, and Yosuke abruptly noticed that he was kind of awkwardly leaning against one of the vending machines. He didn’t understand why until he was crouched next to him, and he could hear a conversation happening on the other side of the wall the vending machines were standing against. 

“...I just don’t see it. I mean, yeah they’re close, but I just can’t see Sempai going out with _him_ ,” said a very familiar sounding voice - one that Yosuke had been familiar with even _before_ they saved her from her Shadow, thanks to the various CDs of hers he’d purchased. Rise. And the _him_ she was talking about was almost definitely Yosuke himself.

“Rise-chan, you saw them a couple of minutes ago, just like we did. And they’ve been like this all day,” another voice pointed out - Yukiko. 

“But I just...I mean, Yosuke-sempai is always hitting on us, and didn’t you say he was all grossed out in the bathhouse?” Rise replied, and there was the sound of an exasperated sigh.

“I don’t understand it either, but best friends don’t just kiss each-other,” another voice said, and it was definitely Chie. Yosuke’s eyes widened when he heard her mention the kiss, and he stared over at Souji, who just nodded at him. 

“And it did look an awful lot like they were on a date today,” Yukiko’s voice said. 

“Yeah, I thought so too!” Chie’s voice added. 

“It’s just kind of hard to believe, you know? And if they _are_ going out, why didn’t they _tell_ us? This is kind of important information!” Rise replied.  

“Well...you know how Yosuke is,” Chie hedged. Yosuke barely managed not to groan in annoyance. They _were_ going to think it was his fault! 

“Maybe they just started going out? I mean, Yosuke-kun did look kind of surprised when Souji-kun kissed him…” Yukiko suggested. 

“But he didn’t freak out,” Chie pointed out. “And that’s the biggest...oh, crap!” 

“Hm?” Yukiko asked. 

“Look at the time! The train will be here any minute!” Chie replied. Yosuke and Souji shared a look, and Souji nodded his head back towards the platform. They quickly moved back over to where they had been standing, Yosuke pointedly staring as hard as he could at the departures and arrivals to prevent himself from looking back at where the three girls had been talking. 

“...so, I guess we owe Kanji money,” Souji remarked. 

“Huh?” Yosuke asked, and Souji chuckled. 

“He was right. Rise doesn’t want to believe it even though the proof is right in front of her eyes,” he said. Then he reached over and grabbed Yosuke’s hand, lacing their fingers together. Yosuke looked down at their hands and then back up at Souji, feeling his face go red. 

“ _Dude_ ,” he hissed, but Souji just smiled over at him. Ugh, the charming son of a bitch- 

“I guess this settles it, we’ll have to tell them now for sure,” he said, and threw a lightning-quick glance over his shoulder. “I wonder if they’ll get on the same train as us…”

Yosuke sighed, and shifted a little closer to Souji. Knowing the girls were watching wasn’t exactly doing wonders for his confidence, but now that the cat was out of the bag he felt strangely relieved. 

“Oh!” Souji said, and Yosuke looked at him, startled. He looked like he’d just had an epiphany. “I don’t think we owe Kanji money after all...isn’t Teddie the last one to find out?” Yosuke chuckled. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Partner,” he replied, and Souji looked at him. Yosuke was already red, but he felt his face somehow get even hotter. “I think he already knows. This morning he...um, well, let’s just say you have him to thank for the fact that I’m wearing these pants.” 

“Oh?” Souji asked, expression of surprise melting into a sly grin. “I guess I haven’t been as discreet as I thought I was when I’ve been checking you out.” He pointedly leaned back and Yosuke could almost _feel_ his gaze linger on his ass. “They look _really_ good on you, though.” 

“Ugh, _jerk_ ,” Yosuke sighed in response. 

“You say that, but I know you’re enjoying it,” Souji teased. “Oh, the train’s here.” 

They got on the train among the small cluster of people that had been waiting at the station with them, making their way over to the far corner of the train, where there were less people already sitting. At first, it looked to Yosuke like they were going to escape without having to confront the girls, but just before the doors shut, the three of them came squeezing in. Chie spotted them first, going red and turning to the other two and whispering something. Yosuke shared a look with Souji, who took out his phone and typed a quick message. 

“Play along” 

What did _that_ mean? But before he could even formulate a way to ask, the three were making their way over toward them. Souji raised a hand in greeting, and Yosuke copied him, awkwardly. 

“Y-yo!” Chie greeted, and Yukiko elbowed her in the side. “Uh, wow, what a coincidence, right? What are you two doing in Okina?” 

Before either of them could answer - and honestly, Yosuke didn’t even know _how_ to answer - Rise bounded around the two girls and all but flung herself into the empty seat beside Souji, grabbing his arm. 

“Sempai!” she exclaimed, and her smile was too big, too forced. “I’m so glad to see you!” 

“Rise…” Souji started, but she either didn’t hear or chose not to pay attention to his protest. She squeezed his arm harder, pressing her _chest_ up against it, and Yosuke only managed not to snap at her because Souji grabbed one of his hands and held it firmly against the seat with his free arm. An angry outburst died in his throat as he watched Rise blink up at Souji with a fake pout. 

“Sempai, are you not glad to see me too?” she asked, and Yosuke almost felt _bad_ for her. 

“Rise, please don’t do this,” Souji replied, practically a warning, his voice gentle. Yosuke saw her falter, but she stubbornly pressed on. 

“Do what, Sempai?” she asked. Souji pulled a deep breath into his lungs and, holy shit, Yosuke could feel him trembling a little. 

“Please let go of my arm,” he said. She looked uncertain, finally letting her smiling mask fall a little. She let go of his arm and scooted a little away from him, looking unsure of herself. 

“H-hey, uh, w-what were you to two doing in Okina? Come to catch a movie like we did?” Chie asked, and the awkwardness was practically _palpable_ . Neither Yosuke or Souji looked away from Rise though. After what felt like _years_ but could have only been a few seconds probably, Souji swallowed, and opened his mouth and gave an answer. 

“We were on a date,” he admitted. Rise’s face flashed from shocked to sad and then, abruptly, to angry. She stood up. 

“S-so you really _are_ dating him, Sempai?” she asked. Souji could only nod. Yosuke looked back and forth between them, not sure when or even _if_ he should intrude on the conversation. Rise’s hands balled up into fists, but she managed to continue with a solid voice. “How long?”

“...since June,” Souji admitted. And Rise looked like she’d been slapped in the face. 

“J-June? Really?” Yukiko asked. Yosuke didn’t even have to look at her or Chie to know that they were surprised. 

“So you’ve been sneaking around and hiding this from us this whole time? Why would you...no, wait, I know,” Rise continued. Her voice was terrifyingly devoid of emotions. For the first time in the conversation, she turned to look at Yosuke. “You wanted to keep it a secret, right? You wanted Sempai all to yourself but you were too chicken to make it public because it would destroy your image, right?” 

“That’s not-” Yosuke started to defend, but Souji beat him to it.

“It was my idea to keep it a secret,” he interjected. Rise laughed, but it was entirely devoid of humor. 

“Yeah, right. Don’t try to cover for him, Sempai,” she replied. She locked eyes with Yosuke again, and she looked _furious_.  

“I’m not,” Souji replied, and he stood up too, bringing Yosuke up with him as a consequence. “Rise, please listen-” 

“ _You_ listen, Sempai. He does _not_ deserve you, and just know that if - no, _when_ he screws all this up, I’ll be waiting for you,” she said. Then she turned on her heel, not quite fast enough that they couldn’t see the start of tears falling, and bolted for the back of the train car and through the door into the next car. Yosuke could only stand there and stare after her, in total shock. 

“R-rise-chan!” Chie stammered, and took off after her. 

“Um, I’m - I’m so sorry about this,” Yukiko told them. 

“It’s...just make sure she’s okay, all right?” Souji replied, and his voice sounded funny. Yukiko nodded and rushed off after the other two girls, leaving Souji and Yosuke alone to sink back into their seats in a daze.

“Well...that could have gone better,” Souji said after a moment. Yosuke only nodded. He started to reach up and scratch at his head, but realized with a start that Souji still had his hand in a tight grip. He just sat there, numbly, letting Souji rub his thumb nervously over the top of his hand. After a few seconds of silence, Souji finally looked over at him. “Hey...you okay?” Yosuke finally shook himself out of his daze, with a deep sigh. 

“Thinking things like that about myself is one thing but hearing someone else say them out loud is really...hard to take,” he replied, surprised at the way his own voice was shaking. 

“Hey,” Souji said, leaning more into Yosuke’s space. Yosuke very pointedly looked down at their hands, wanting to take his hand out of Souji’s but also wanting to be selfish and leave it. Gah, he was so conflicted. Things had been going so well between them that Yosuke had started to let himself believe that he really did deserve this: this loving relationship, this caring partner, this happiness - even after everything he’d said and done. But, he didn’t. 

“Rise is right,” Yosuke sighed. He couldn't look at Souji. “I...really don't deserve you. I mean, I-I wanted to tell the others about us but I'm still so afraid of what'll happen if everyone at school finds out, or at work or…”

“Yosuke...Yosuke, Partner I-” Souji started. Yosuke tried to pull his hand out of Souji’s, but he held on tight. “You're wrong about that -- _Rise_ is wrong, you have to know that.” 

“Rise’d be better for you though. I mean, she's already so much more successful than I'll _ever_ be, a-and-”

“Yosuke-”

“-if you were dating her it wouldn’t be a big deal if anyone found out about it-” 

“ _Yosuke_.” 

“I’m...such an _idiot_ ,” Yosuke continued, barreling on past Souji’s objections. All of a sudden, he felt himself being pulled into a hug, his face being pressed firmly against one of Souji’s shoulders and - oh. He was crying. He wasn’t sure when he’d started, to be honest. 

“Partner,” Souji said, and Yosuke finally shut up, swallowing down a mouthful of bile. “None of that matters. It doesn’t matter how successful Rise is or what anyone thinks about us...okay?”

“...but-” Yosuke started to protest, but Souji shushed him, holding him a little tighter, squeezing his hand - which he _still_ had a hold of. He shook his head, his hair tickling the side of Yosuke’s face a little.  

“Whether or not you ‘deserve’ me isn’t for anyone to decide but us. But you do deserve me, Yosuke. You... _we_ . We deserve _each-other_ . Okay?” Souji continued. Yosuke didn’t know how to respond. He wanted what Souji was saying to be true, _desperately_ , but what Rise had said felt too true to him. “Rise is just mad that we were hiding this from her. And...she’s probably really hurt right now. She wasn’t exactly subtle with her affection toward me.” 

“Yeah…” Yosuke sighed.

“I’m sure Chie and Yukiko are handling it. And the next time we see them, we can apologize. That’s all we can do. But for now just...trust me. Believe me.” Souji reassured. 

“I...I want to,” Yosuke admitted. Souji carefully pulled away from him, not trying to push him away, but clearly wanting to look at him. He noticed Souji glancing around the car and it made him look around too, paranoid that they were causing a scene. Fortunately, aside from an elderly couple giving them concerned looks, they were mostly alone.

“Partner,” Souji said, pulling Yosuke’s attention back to him. He looked a little sad and a lot guilty. “I have something to tell you - it’s _good_ , I promise, but it’s really personal, so I don’t want to discuss it here.” Yosuke nodded, biting his lip and looking back down at their hands - where Souji _still_ had his hand trapped in a firm, but not painful, grip.  

“...okay,” he exhaled, his voice a little shaky. They spent the rest of the ride in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First: I LOVE RISE SO MUCH I PROMISE SHE WON'T BE SAD FOREVER I'LL FIX THIS
> 
> Second: Listen, all I wanted was shameless PWP and all of a sudden this story has PLOT and FEELINGS and I don't know where they're coming from. I'm just as much along for the ride as you guys are.
> 
> Third: I already have the next chapter written, I just have to edit it, so don't worry too much about this cliffhanger!


	8. Souji is a Good Boyfriend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m going to give you evidence that you definitely deserve to be with me - evidence that nobody will be able to disprove, not you, or Rise, or anyone,” Souji explained. Yosuke’s eyes widened a little. Did evidence like that even exist?

Souji didn’t let go of Yosuke’s hand: not when they finally got off the train (and they didn’t run into the girls, thank goodness), not once during the long and painfully silent walk from the station back to the Dojima residence, not even when he unlocked the door and slid it open. Only once they were inside did Souji let go of his hand, to reach down and take off his shoes.  

“So, uh,” Yosuke started, once their shoes were deposited by the door and they’d put on their house slippers, “w-what did you want to tell me?” Souji just motioned for Yosuke to follow him up the stairs, which he did without hesitation. It was only once they were both sitting on Souji’s couch that he finally spoke up.

“I’m going to give you evidence that you definitely deserve to be with me - evidence that nobody will be able to disprove, not you, or Rise, or  _ anyone _ ,” Souji explained. Yosuke’s eyes widened a little. Did evidence like that even exist?

“Yeah?” he asked, his throat suddenly going dry. Souji nodded.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed how much I always want to have sex with you,” he started, and Yosuke almost choked, because this was  _ not _ what he was expecting. He ended up laughing instead.

“I might have,” Yosuke replied, with a wink. Souji smiled back at him, but it was oddly pensive.

“I...wasn’t always like that,” Souji admitted. “You know we were both virgins the first time we had sex, right?”

“Yeah?” Yosuke asked, baffled. They’d talked about it pretty extensively before deciding to go all the way. Of course Yosuke knew. 

“Well...it isn’t just that I hadn’t ever had sex before then,” Souji started, meeting his eyes with a bashful look on his face, for some reason. “I hadn’t ever  _ wanted _ to have sex with anyone before then.”

“Huh?” was all Yosuke could reply with. “I mean, me neither, Partner.”

“No no, I mean...I mean that I’d never even thought about it or imagined it. Ever. With  _ anyone _ . Nobody really ever,” Souji bit his lip, faltering for a second, before shakily continuing, “Nothing really ever...aroused me.” All Yosuke could do was blink in confusion.

“What, like...you never got a boner?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Of course I did,” Souji answered, sounding a little exasperated. “I  _ am _ male.”

“But you never like...jerked off?” Yosuke continued.

“I did but it didn’t really...appeal to me?” Souji replied, sounding unsure of himself. “What I mean is, when I saw an attractive woman or man, I could obviously tell they were attractive, but it never made me...feel things. Not like I do when I’m with you.”

“Huh,” Yosuke replied. 

“Porn never did anything for me either...and yes, that’s why I don’t have any,” Souji replied, answering Yosuke’s question before he could do more than open his mouth. He shut it, feeling a little ashamed at how easy he was to read. 

“So...okay, so you never wanted to bang anyone before. What’s so different about me?” Yosuke asked, and Souji smiled.

“Have you ever heard the term ‘demisexual’ before?” Souji asked, and Yosuke shook his head. “Basically, a demisexual person doesn’t feel sexual attraction to a person unless they’ve formed a deep emotional bond with them.” 

“Oh,” Yosuke replied. Then, it hit him,  _ really _ hit him, what Souji was actually saying. He felt his jaw drop, and a blush creep across his cheeks. “Oh! B-but…”

“You know, for the longest time I thought I was broken. I just couldn’t understand why the girls in my classes would fawn over guys, or the guys would drool over girls, when looking at those same people didn’t do anything for me. I could tell they were aesthetically attractive but even after trying to date them,  _ nothing _ happened. And then  _ you _ came along.”

“Yeah?” Yosuke asked, breathless. Souji shook his head and chuckled, but there was no humor in it.

“I was relieved at first that at least I wasn’t broken any more, but, Yosuke, I was  _ terrified _ . For the first time in my life I wanted someone,  _ so much _ , and I never thought you’d reciprocate...I didn’t know what to do. I’m just...so glad you feel the same way I do,” Souji replied, and Yosuke felt like his heart was in his throat. “So when I say you deserve me...we deserve each-other...I really mean it. You’re the only one that’s ever made me feel like this.”

“Souji…” Yosuke breathed. He was totally in shock, if he was being honest. A thought struck him, and he had to laugh. “No wonder you wanted to keep it a secret, if you were trying to figure everything out all at once. Hell, I don’t blame you.”

“Well, the cat’s out of the bag now, right?” Souji asked, and Yosuke rolled his eyes. 

“Leave it to you to work in a cat pun…” Yosuke sighed. Another thought struck him. “I thought you said you were gay, though?”

“I mean, that’s not wrong,” Souji shrugged. “I felt like it was safer back then to just say that I was gay, rather than suddenly confess that you’re the only person I’ve ever been physically attracted to.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Yosuke replied. If Souji had dropped all that on him all at once back then, he probably would have run away screaming.  _ Definitely _ would have, he amended. “Still...you  _ never _ wanted to have sex?” 

“It never appealed to me before,” Souji explained.

“How do you go from never wanting sex to having the secret relationship kink and wanting to have sex outdoors, like  _ constantly _ ?” Yosuke asked. Souji blushed, and it was absolutely  _ fascinating. _

“It’s like you said, I was figuring everything out as I went along, when we first started going out. I was scared that the feelings were going to go away, and I didn’t want go around telling everyone and then have it all be a lie,” Souji explained. Yosuke nodded.

“Yeah, I get you there. I was worried about that too, y’know. That’s...uh...that’s why I practiced with all the bananas and stuff,” Yosuke admitted, feeling himself blush with embarrassment. Wanting to deflect some of the embarrassment, he pressed on. “And what about the...what was that word you used that one time…’exhabitation’?”

“Exhibitionism,” Souji corrected, with a laugh, but he was blushing, too. “Uh, it’s not really a  _ kink _ so much as I just… want to have sex with you. All the time. Everywhere.”

“...oh?” Yosuke replied. Before he could stop it, a his mouth twitched into a smirk. “Even right now?”

“No,” Souji answered, and Yosuke frowned in confusion, only to stop in his tracks when he noticed the  _ look _ Souji was giving him - all tender, and loving, and  _ holy shit _ . If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear that Souji was somehow  _ sparkling _ .  “I don’t want  _ sex _ tonight, I want to  _ make love _ .” Yosuke suddenly found his throat very, very dry.

“Oh.”

Souji shifted closer to him on the couch, turning a little more to face him, and brought a hand up to cup one of Yosuke’s incredibly hot cheeks.

“Is that okay?” he asked, and Yosuke almost laughed.

“More than okay,” he replied, leaning into Souji’s hand with a little involuntary sigh of contentment. “But...what’s the difference? Do we just go slower?”

“I don’t want tonight to just be about getting off,” Souji explained. His other hand landed on Yosuke’s shoulder. “I want to take my time and really show you how much I love you. Okay?” Souji’s eyes were clear, and locked steadily on Yosuke’s own eyes. Yosuke nodded, and moved his own hands to settle on Souji’s waist.

“Then show me,” he said, and if his voice was a little thick with emotions, he knew his Partner wouldn’t care. Souji immediately leaned into him and pressed their lips together in a soft, gentle kiss. Yosuke let his eyes drift closed, felt Souji pushing him back and went willingly, laying back against the couch with his head propped up on one of the pillows. Souji settled between his legs and deepened the kiss, running his tongue along the seam of Yosuke’s mouth until he let him in. They made out like that for a while, Souji’s hands pushing Yosuke’s shirt up and trailing over his chest, Yosuke’s hands untucking the blue dress shirt and sliding up Souji’s back. 

“We should move to the futon,” Souji said, after they eventually parted for air. His voice was low and rough and, ugh,  _ hot _ . Yosuke just nodded in response, breathless, and let himself be pulled up into a standing position. He unfolded the futon while Souji rummaged in the bottom drawer of his dresser, eventually returning with a bottle (that Yosuke was now very familiar with) and a foil packet. He dropped the items onto the futon beside where Yosuke was now sitting, lowering himself to straddle Yosuke’s lap and reaching down to grab the bottom hem of Yosuke’s shirt.  Yosuke raised his arms dutifully, letting Souji tug the shirt off of him and toss it somewhere behind them. Yosuke wasted no time in reaching up to start undoing the buttons of Souji’s blue dress shirt. Even though he’d done this a few times now, he somehow still found himself fumbling a little.

“You’d think I’d be an expert at this by now,” Yosuke said, with a laugh. Souji chuckled in return.

“Well, practice makes perfect,” he replied, and Yosuke grinned, leaning up a little to kiss him while he continued fumbling with the buttons. Eventually he did get all of the buttons undone, pushing the shirt off of Souji’s shoulders and letting him lean back to remove it fully, tugging off the tank top he was wearing underneath it as well. Yosuke couldn’t help wrapping an arm around Souji’s waist and tugging him back in closer, pressing a series of hot kisses to the newly exposed skin of Souji’s chest and neck. He eventually moved up to the side of Souji’s neck, where he lingered, pressing an open-mouthed kiss there and sucking with determination. They’d always needed to be careful about not leaving any visible marks on each-other before, no matter how much they had wanted to (Yosuke had  _ really _ wanted to), but now that the whole team more-or-less knew about them, he couldn’t help it. 

“Ngh, P-Partner,” Souji gasped, and Yosuke could feel that he was hard already when he bucked his hips against Yosuke’s stomach, “wait, wait, you’re gonna leave a hickey.”

“That’s the idea,” Yosuke replied, pulling back away from his neck a little shamefully. He really should have asked first.

“Oh?” Souji asked, and Yosuke was a little proud of how breathless he sounded.

“I want people to know that there’s someone  _ allowed _ to give you hickeys,” he explained, blushing. As hot as it sounded in his head, when he said it out loud it just sounded really  _ dumb _ .

“Oh yeah?” Souji purred in response, and Yosuke looked up, a little surprised, to see Souji all but leering at him. He gulped.

“Y-yeah,” Yosuke replied. He could still feel how hard Souji was against him, and combined with the sheer  _ heat _ in his eyes, it made Yosuke feel determined. “Yeah. I want everyone to know that you’re  _ mine _ .” Souji gasped in response, hips bucking against Yosuke almost involuntarily.

“G-go ahead,” Souji practically whined his approval, and Yosuke wasted no time in leaning back in and attacking Souji’s neck. He surprised  _ himself _ with his intensity, in fact, biting down a little before he got back down to business sucking one hell of a hickey into the side of Souji’s neck. Yosuke couldn’t tell if the bite bothered Souji at all, because he was moaning and gripping Yosuke’s back with trembling hands. He had no earthly idea of how long he was supposed to suck on his neck to leave a mark, but Souji didn’t need to know that. He pulled back a few moments later to inspect his handiwork and found a nice little patch of red skin. 

“There we go,” he said, pressing a kiss to the mark and feeling a little giddy. It would fade away within a day or two, he knew that, but for now it was undeniable proof that Souji was  _ his _ , that he loved Souji and Souji loved him enough to let him mark him like this, and  _ damn _ that was hot. 

All of a sudden, he felt himself being shoved onto his back, and Souji was leaning over him, eyes half-lidded and  _ intense _ as he looked down at him.

“Can I?” he asked, and Yosuke just grinned, leaning his head to the side and exposing his neck to him. Souji groaned in response and dove down, licking a stripe up from Yosuke’s collarbones to just below his ear, before kissing back down his neck. 

“Here?” he asked, nipping at a patch of skin high up on his neck. Yosuke shuddered - it was still summer, and he’d have to be wearing a turtleneck (that he didn’t even own) to cover that. At least Souji would be able to hide his behind the popped collars he was so enamoured with wearing.

“Lower,” Yosuke instructed, and Souji kissed a little lower on his neck, still so high that it would be totally conspicuous. 

“Here?” he asked. The idea of his classmates or coworkers seeing a hickey there was both mortifying and incredibly hot, but he was pretty sure it would be a bad idea.

“Little lower,” he replied, and he felt Souji chuckle against him, kissing just barely lower.

“Here?” he asked, playfully, and Yosuke rolled his eyes.

“C’mon, Partner,” Yosuke groaned, and Souji pulled away from his neck with a pout.

“Okay then, Mr. Finicky, why don’t you  _ show _ me where?” he asked. Yosuke reached a hand up and tapped on his neck, right at the junction of where it met his shoulder. He was met with a further pout. “But you’ll be able to cover that up.”

“Well, yeah,” Yosuke replied, arching an eyebrow. “We have school tomorrow, and I have to go to work.”

“But I thought…” Souji trailed off, reaching up to rub at the hickey Yosuke had just finished sucking into his neck. “You gave me this because you want everyone to know that I’m yours, right? I just want to do the same.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Yosuke replied, and if his voice was a little tight, Souji didn’t seem to notice. “H-how about here, then?” he finally asked, tapping at a space just about an inch further up his neck. “Then we’ll match.” Souji looked delighted, immediately moving down to get to work. Yosuke let his hands settle on Souji’s back, appreciating the feeling of warm skin against his hands, while Souji mouthed at his neck. When he finally started to suck, Yosuke was surprised by how good it actually felt, sending shocks of arousal through him and making him feel kind of… pleasantly tingly all over. It was just a mouth against his skin, but it made Yosuke think about all the things he knew Souji could  _ do _ with his mouth. He didn’t even realize that he was grinding up against Souji until he felt a hand press against his hips to stop the movements. Souji pulled back and fixed him with a smirk.

“ _ Somebody’s _ eager,” he teased, and Yosuke groaned.

“We should take off our pants,” he panted, and Souji grinned.

“Great idea.”

Souji was naked in no time. Yosuke, on the other hand, was having...difficulties. He was starting to suspect that Souji had chosen the dark blue dress pants not just because the fit was incredibly flattering on him, but also because they were incredibly easy to take off. He wished he’d had the same luxury - because as gratifying as it had been to find Souji’s eyes trailing over his backside all day in these damned red pants, they were annoyingly difficult to take off.  _ Especially _ because they felt three sizes too small with how hard Yosuke was at the moment. In the end it took Yosuke wriggling and struggling with the waistband while Souji tugged them off from the bottom, chuckling all the way, to get them off of him. But once they were on the floor somewhere and Yosuke was  _ finally _ naked, it was worth it. Souji pushed him onto his back and reached down to fondle him, kissing him until his annoyed pout melted into an indulgent smile. 

“Those are still my favorite pants to see you wear,” Souji told him, brushing a stray lock of hair out of Yosuke’s face with a smile. “You should definitely wear them more often.”

“I’ll just have to remember to take them off  _ before _ I get hard,” Yosuke sighed. Now that the embarrassment was starting to ebb away, it was actually starting to be funny to him. “But that’ll be pretty difficult around you, Partner.”

Souji ducked his head with a chuckle, blushing. “...that was really smooth.”

“Thanks, I try,” Yosuke replied, looping his arms around Souji’s neck and bringing him down for a kiss. “So, now what? Gonna get back to showing me how much you love me?” 

“Sounds great,” Souji said, sitting up and reaching for the pillow that Yosuke wasn’t currently laying on. He sat back and motioned for Yosuke to lift his hips, sliding the pillow under them and reaching for the bottle of lube. Yosuke chuckled.

“I guess that answers my next question,” he said, and Souji looked up from where he was pouring lube onto his right hand.

“We can do it the other way, if you’d like,” he offered, but Yosuke shook his head.

“Next time,” Yosuke promised, with a smile. “This is...this feels right, for tonight.” Souji returned his smile.

“Yeah,” he said. He moved back up Yosuke’s body for one more kiss, then sat back again.

“You’ll tell me if it hurts, right?” he asked.

“Of course, Partner. How many times have we done this now?” Yosuke replied, with a fond sigh.

“I know, I know,” Souji replied, gently circling Yosuke’s hole with one slick finger, before pushing it in slowly. Yosuke made himself relax, and it slid in with little resistance.

“You’re getting better at this,” Souji commented, sounding as nonchalant as if they were talking about, like, homework or sports and not  _ getting fingered _ . It made Yosuke laugh.

“I learned from the best,” he replied, with a wink. He saw Souji smirk, and felt a second finger push in beside the first, with only a little bit of discomfort as a result. 

“I think you deserve a reward,” Souji said, glancing up to meet Yosuke’s heated stare before moving his other hand to close around Yosuke’s hardness. 

“If you insist,” Yosuke sighed, happily, and let himself fall back against the pillow and close his eyes. He felt the hot wetness of Souji’s tongue lapping at the head of his cock as his fingers moved in and out of him, gently easing and stretching and prodding. He felt a third finger push in, and cracked open his eyes a little to watch as Souji took him into his mouth. He loved watching Souji work him like this - the fierce determination in his eyes, the slightly furrowed brow in concentration, the flush on his cheeks, the way he looked with his lips stretched around Yosuke’s cock - it was the  _ best _ . One of these days he’d have to leave his phone close enough to the futon so that he could take a picture.

It wasn’t long before Yosuke started getting impatient, biting his lip and grabbing a fistful of sheets to keep himself from trying to buck up into Souji’s mouth. Souji smirked and looked up to lock eyes with him, teasingly, before Yosuke felt his fingers press up inside him against his prostate. Yosuke bucked his hips against Souji’s fingers, moaning encouragingly. He was almost so focused on the feeling of Souji’s fingers rubbing slowly around the bundle of nerves inside him that he didn’t notice Souji leaning forward and swallowing his cock down entirely. Almost, but there was no way he would ever be able to ignore the feeling of that tight, hot wetness around his dick. He made the mistake of glancing down and if the image of Souji’s lips stretched around the  _ head _ of his cock was hot, the image of Souji’s mouth almost flush with his hips was  _ scorching _ . He had to throw a hand over his face and grit his teeth to keep himself under control.

“S-Souji I -  _ hah _ \- I’m close…” he panted, and Souji hummed in acknowledgement, which sent a spike of pleasure to his core and made him shiver in response. The pressure in his ass vanished, leaving him feel disconcertingly empty, and he felt a hand close around the base of his cock to steady it as Souji slid back and off of it, gasping in a breath and then panting audibly as he sat back and away from Yosuke’s body. He heard Souji shuffling around and the distinct crinkle of foil as he opened the condom packet, and before he could really think about what he was doing, Yosuke sat up and grabbed his arm to stop him.

“Hm?” Souji asked, his voice raspy and deep. “Do you...not want the condom?” 

“Uh,” Yosuke stammered, feeling his face turning red at an alarming rate. “No?”

“Are you sure?” Souji asked, and Yosuke huffed a little in annoyance.

“We did this without a condom before, didn’t we?” Yosuke asked.

“I meant to apologize for that,” Souji replied, rubbing the back of his neck and looking sheepish. 

“Don’t,” Yosuke said, firmly. He reached over and grabbed the condom out of Souji’s hands, looking determined. “It was...it was fine. More than fine. It-it was actually really hot.”

“Yeah?” Souji asked, and Yosuke almost couldn’t look at him.

“I mean, if  _ you _ want to wear it that’s a different story, but I’m fine without it,” he explained. He looked at the bed, at the condom in his hand, at their laps where they were both very much standing at attention, and he nodded, feeling sure of himself. He looked up and met Souji’s eyes, then tossed the condom away to land somewhere on the floor. “I liked...feeling you come inside me. Okay?”

“Yosuke,” Souji groaned, and when Yosuke looked up at him, he grabbed him by the face and pressed a hard, searing kiss to his mouth. He felt himself once again getting pushed onto his back, and when the kiss ended, Souji’s hands were braced on his inner thighs, pushing his legs further apart. He watched, breathless with anticipation, as Souji slicked up his dick with one hand and reached out to grip his hip with the other. And then he was finally,  _ finally _ pushing inside of Yosuke, and the stretching and fullness and heat felt just as good as the last time. Souji pushed in carefully and slowly, stopping once he was fully inside Yosuke to give him time to adjust. But Yosuke didn’t need it, he wanted friction and movement  _ now _ , so he almost immediately started grinding his ass against Souji’s hips. Souji hissed out a moan.

“Somebody’s eager,” he repeated, and Yosuke laughed.

“Just fu-...just make love to me, you jerk,” he replied, still grinding, circling his hips and trembling at the way it made Souji’s cock shift inside him.

“Maybe if you ask nicely,” Souji teased, moving a hand to curl around Yosuke’s dick and giving it a couple of infuriatingly loose strokes. Yosuke moaned in response.

“ _ Please _ ,” he gasped, and Souji grabbed his hips with a growl, pulling out a little and all but slamming back in and that was it - that was what Yosuke  _ needed _ . He planted his arms against the futon and lifted his hips to meet Souji’s, shifting around a little each time until Souji was finally nailing his prostate with every thrust. It was good - it was  _ so _ good, it was  _ incredible _ . He started to feel the telltale heat and tightening in his gut that meant that he was getting close, and he could tell from the way Souji was starting to shudder that he wasn’t much further behind him. He opened his mouth to ask Souji to touch him, but Souji chose that moment to reach down and cup the side of Yosuke’s neck, brushing his thumb across the hickey he’d left there.

“I love you,” Souji gasped, still pounding into him hard, and - and what kind of kink did Yosuke  _ have _ \- he came on the spot, right there, without a hand on his dick to help him along. He gasped out Souji’s name as he spilled all over his stomach, feeling Souji’s thrusts like electric shocks as he rode out the intense orgasm. He heard Souji moan his name and felt him come, warm wetness spreading inside him as he thrusted through his own orgasm. 

When Yosuke came to, Souji’s hand was still against his neck, thumb pressed gently against the hickey. He just laid there in a daze, panting to get his breathing under control, eyes fixed on nothing in particular on the ceiling. All he could get his brain to process was ‘holy shit’ and ‘I love him.’ He felt Souji pull his hand away and whimpered, reaching out for it blindly, only for Souji to chuckle and say something - fuck if Yosuke knew what because speech was basically beyond him right now - and pull further away. When he slid his cock out of Yosuke it felt like a loss, almost, and even though it was probably warm in the room he felt cold. Then he felt warm cum start to trickle out of him and he shuddered, pulling his legs closed involuntarily. He whined when he felt Souji push them back open, but then Souji was cleaning him with a warm, wet towel, so Yosuke couldn’t really complain. 

Souji mopped up the mess on his stomach, too, and flopped down beside him on the futon as soon as he deemed him clean enough.

“That was incredible,” Souji rasped, pressing a kiss against the hickey on his neck. Yosuke shuddered in response, rolling over to tuck himself against Souji’s still-naked form, burying his face in the crook of Souji’s neck and kissing the matching hickey. Souji laughed, a pleasant rumbling in his chest, and Yosuke sighed in contentment when he felt a hand petting his hair. “Did you feel the love?”

“Mhm,” Yosuke replied, because words were still beyond him. They stayed like that for a long time, just basking in the afterglow and in the warmth of each-others’ bodies, before the pleasant buzz started to fade from Yosuke’s mind, and a thought struck him.

“When is Nanako-chan supposed to come back?” he asked, hesitant to break the spell but suddenly very paranoid about exposing Souji’s poor innocent cousin to something she did  _ not _ need to see. Souji chuckled.

“I told her to call me when she was about to leave her friend’s house. So I could start on dinner,” he replied, and Yosuke chuckled, too.

“You sly dog,” he complimented.

“That being said...she’ll probably be heading out soon. We should get up,” Souji replied.

“But I don’t wanna,” Yosuke pouted.

“I’m making curry tonight,” Souji informed him, and Yosuke grinned, snuggling closer to him.

“Marry me,” he joked, and Souji laughed.

“So that’s how it is,” he sighed, over-dramatically, and pulled away from Yosuke to flop onto his back. “You only love me for my cooking.”

“Hey, that’s not true! The sex is great, too,” Yosuke protested, with a smirk. Souji proceeded to hit him in the face with a pillow.

Yosuke helped him strip the sheets off of the futon, then fold the futon back up, then they had to hunt down their clothes. Yosuke’s pants had somehow been tossed entirely across the room and were draped across Souji’s shelf. They found the condom, too, which made Yosuke blush and Souji smirk. He just put it back in the bottom drawer of his dresser, along with the lube. By the time Nanako called they were at least wearing pants, and had shoved the dirty sheets into the washer.

Souji was busy with the curry, so Yosuke greeted Nanako at the door when she returned, and she was ecstatic to see him. Souji let Nanako help him with some of the easier, less potentially dangerous tasks of making the curry, while Yosuke sat at the table and watched them. 

Souji had a ridiculous pink apron on, and he was talking Nanako through the various steps of cooking so patiently, he couldn’t help but smile and admire the scene. Even though Souji hadn’t been in Inaba for that long, the two of them really looked like they were closer than just cousins. Souji really did fit into the ‘big bro’ role a little too easily, but watching him patiently help Nanako hold the knife and chop up potatoes, Yosuke could just as easily see him instructing a daughter the same way…

And, man. Souji with kids. Yosuke had no doubts that he’d be a great father, someday. He’d be great at whatever he set his mind to, really, but seeing him with Nanako like this, Yosuke could so easily picture Souji with a daughter of his own. It warmed his heart. Yosuke hadn’t ever known if  _ he _ wanted kids, but if he was with Souji, he would definitely-

Yosuke’s thoughts ground to a sudden halt. What was he doing? They’d only been together for a few months. They were both still in high school! He had no business thinking about the future like this. He needed to stop. 

But…

Well, he knew he wanted to be with Souji. Forever, if he could be. He’d meant that ‘marry me’ comment earlier as a joke, but...he hadn’t been completely joking, had he? But he’d always heard that high school romances didn’t last. The plan had  _ always _ been to graduate high school, and either go to college or a trade school, and  _ then _ find a nice girl to marry and settle down and have kids. 

But then again, and this may have just been the amazing sex talking, did he really want that anymore? It wasn’t that he didn’t like girls anymore, but...they weren’t Souji. They would never be Souji. And weren’t things different for them? He’d never have the shared experience of fighting Shadows or having a Persona with anyone else, unless he married one of the girls from the Investigation Team, anyway, and...well…

They weren’t Souji.

“Curry’s almost done!” Souji’s jovial announcement cut through his suddenly tangled-up thoughts. He looked up to find Souji smiling at him over his shoulder. “Can you set the table?”

“I’ll help you, Yosuke-nii!” Nanako chimed in. Yosuke stood up from the table with a grin, and resolved to push those thoughts off for another day. Right now, he had curry to eat.

...and maybe, he’d start picking up more shifts at Junes. Rings were expensive, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, my name is Artik "I can't write slow burn to save my own life and this fic is proof" gato
> 
> I do have more planned for this story, including resolving the situation with Rise, but as of right now I don't have much more written, so I can't say exactly when the next chapter will happen. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


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